CBI court reserves order on bail pleas of Reddys

A special Central Bureau of Investigation court on Monday reserved its order for tomorrow on the bail petitions of former Karnataka minister and mining baron Janardhan Reddy and his brother-in-law B V Srinivas Reddy arrested on charges of illegal mining.

After hearing arguments of defence counsels and prosecution which went on throughout the day, the magistrate passed orders at 9.15 PM reserving judgement for Tuesday.

Janardhan Reddy and Srinivasa Reddy, managing director of Oblapuram Mining Corporation, were arrested by CBI on September 15 at Bellery in Karnataka in an alleged illegal mining scam and remanded in judicial custody till September 19.

They are currently lodged at the Chanchalguda central jail in Hyderabad. Appearing on behalf of CBI Additional Solicitor General, Vivek Tanaka opposed the bail pleas of the accused and urged the court to grant CBI their custody to get information about illegal mining activities.

He argued that custodial interrogation of both accused was necessary and crucial to get information about the illegal mining activities as both had personal knowledge about them.

Earlier, defence counsel C V Nagesh, a Karnataka High Court lawyer, and Raghavachari contended in the court that their clients have a good reputation in society and there was hidden agenda to go against them.

Appealing to the court to grant bail to the duo, they said their clients would cooperate with the investigating agency in its probe.