The court asked the government why it had not given the go-ahead to attach the properties while it sanctioned the attachment of assets.
Gali Janardhana Reddy. (GaliJanardhanar/Twitter)
The Karnataka High Court granted the state government two more days to provide it information on the delay in granting permission to the CBI to attach the properties of former minister Gali Janardhana Reddy.
The court asked the government why it had not given the go-ahead to attach the properties worth ₹19 crore while it had earlier sanctioned the attachment of ₹ 64 crore assets.
The CBI sought the direction of the court to the government to approve attachment proceedings against the main accused in the Ballari illegal mining case. The request of the CBI has been pending before the government since August 2022.
The CBI had traced additional properties in the name of Reddy, his wife and company in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The agency seeks to attach those properties in the illegal mining case pending before a Special Court since 2013.
The investigating agency claimed Reddy was trying to sell the properties he had obtained from the money from illegal mining activities through his companies Obulapuram Mining Company and Associated Mining Company Ltd.
Reddy was born in a middle-class family in Ballari in 1967. His father, Chenga Reddy, who had migrated from Chittoor town in Andhra Pradesh to Ballari after independence, was a police constable in Karnataka.
Reddy, in his early 20s, started a financial business and established Ennoble India Savings and Investments India, a finance company, in the 1990s.
Later on, along with his brothers, Reddy entered politics with B Sriramulu, currently the Minister for Transport and Tribal Welfare in the Karnataka government led by BJP.
Reddy brothers and Sriramulu were with Congress till the 1999 state Assembly elections and jumped to BJP when Sriramulu was denied a ticket to contest in Bellary.
Reddy came in contact with and developed a good rapport with the former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, YS Rajasekhara Reddy, which helped him in the mining business.
Reddy entered the mining business by setting up the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) with a capital of ₹10 lakh in 2001.
He started his mining business in the Andhra Pradesh Karnataka border region and leased out several mines. In five years, his mining business reached ₹3,000 crore.
Janardhan Reddy, who tasted success in politics, is said to be the man behind ‘Operation Kamala’ — the BJP’s infamous move to poach rival MLAs by offering money and posts.
Circumventing the anti-defection law, Reddy managed to put the BJP at the helm in Karnataka.
On a petition filed by Tapal Ganesh, the proprietor of a private mining company, to a Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court, the apex court ordered the immediate closure of five mines run by the Reddys on charges of exploiting the forest areas by unlawful mining in Ballari and the border districts of Andhra.
Reddy was arrested in an alleged ₹16,000 crores illegal mining scam in 2011. He served jail time until he got bail in 2015.
Forced to sit out by the BJP, especially Amit Shah, in the 2018 Assembly polls, Reddy has decided to go alone this time. Despite the BJP distancing itself from him, Reddy had personally campaigned for B Sriramulu, his man Friday, in 2018.
On 25 December last year, he announced the launch of a new political party ‘Kalyana Rajya Pragati Paksha’. He severed his two-decades-old association with the BJP with this announcement.
Re-entering electoral politics from outside the Ballari district of the state, he said he would contest the 2023 Assembly polls from Gangavathi in the Koppal district.
(With inputs from PTI)
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