ORDER :

U. Durga Prasad Rao, J.

1. The Petitioner company holds three leases for black galaxy granites in respect of (i) 2.729 hectares in S.No. 21/11 to 13, 25P, 26, 27/P & 28/P (concerning to W.P. No. 10994/2021) (ii) 2.223 hectares in S.No. 988/2 (concerning to W.P. No. 10996/2021) and (iii) 2.356 hectares in S.No. 60/P, 101/1P, 102/P (concerning to W.P. No. 11006/2021) of R.L. Puram Village of Chimakurthy Mandal, Prakasam District. All the leases are for 20 years and last till 2028-32. In all the three writ petitions, the petitioner challenges the show cause notice, consequential demand notice and quarry lease determination order passed by the 2nd respondent/Director of Mines & Geology.

2. The petitioner's case succinctly is thus:

(a) The petitioner pleads that due to political rivalry the Mining Officers at the behest of the Government, are harassing the petitioner every now and then. In that process, show cause notices Nos. 3304740/Vg/2020-3 dated 19.02.2020; 3304740/Vg/2020-4 dated 19.02.2020; and 3304740/Vg/2020-27 dated 20.02.2020 were initially issued by the Additional Director of Mines & Geology in respect of all the three leasehold mines on the allegation that during the alleged inspections dated 31.07.2019 and 20.08.2019 conducted in the presence of petitioner's Mines Managers, some violations were found. No prior notice was issued to the petitioner calling for its presence at the time of alleged inspection and no documents and papers that were referred in the show cause notices were supplied to the petitioner. No field survey was conducted in the presence of the officials of the petitioner and no clarifications were sought for before issuing show cause notices. Since principles of natural justice and procedural norms were totally violated, the petitioner filed three writ petition Nos. 6987, 6995 and 6996 of 2020 before this Court to set aside the three show cause notices. Those writ petitions were allowed on 13.03.2020 relying upon the common order in W.P. No. 4894/2020 & batch wherein it was held except the Director of Mines & Geology, the Additional Director has no statutory power to issue show cause notices. Thus, while setting aside the show cause notices, this Court granted liberty to the authorities to issue fresh show cause notices to petitioner through proper authority by enclosing all the relevant documents, in which case the petitioner will have right to submit its explanation by taking all the factual and legal pleas which are available to it.

(b) Consequent to the above order dated 13.03.2020, the 2nd respondent, who is the Director of Mines & Geology, issued show cause notices Nos. 3304740/Vg/2020-3 dated 17.03.2020 (relating to W.P. No. 10994/2021) No. 3304740/Vg/2020-4 dated 18.03.2020 (relating to W.P. No. 10996/2021) and No. 3304740/Vg/2020-27 dated 18.03.2020 (relating to W.P. No. 11006/2021) to the petitioner. Since all the relevant documents which were relied upon to issue show cause notices were not served on petitioner in compliance of the direction contained in common order dated 13.03.2020 of this Court, and also due to COVID-19 pandemic and consequential lockdown and non-availability of staff, the petitioner sought for time as well as relevant documents to enable it to submit explanation to the aforesaid three show cause notices. In that regard, some letter correspondence took place between the petitioner and office of 2nd respondent. The 2nd respondent furnished only some documents and without waiting for the explanation of the petitioner, issued demand notices Nos. 3304740/Vg/2020-3, 3304740/Vg/2020-4 and 3304740/Vg/2020-27 dated 31.07.2020. Aggrieved, the petitioner filed W.P. Nos. 14298, 14303 & 14401 of 2020 challenging the demand notices dated 31.07.2020. The respondents appeared and sought time for filing counter. When the matter stood thus, instead of filing counters, the responden