A Hyderabad court on Saturday sent retired district judge P V Chalapathi Rao and T Ravi Chandra (son of suspended judge T Pattabhirama Rao), both arrested in connection with the cash-for-bail scandal, to five days' custody of the Andhra Pradesh Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Chalapathi Rao and T Ravi Chandra were arrested on June 16 for entering into a conspiracy with Pattabhirama Rao and others to facilitate bail to former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy in the Obulapuram Mining Company case.
In another development, the court rejected the petition of Pattabhirama Rao, also arrested in the case, seeking a special class prisoner status at the Cherlapalli jail in Hyderabad.
On a tip-off that a deal was struck between Janardhan Reddy and the judge and others, the Central Bureau of Investigation had recovered nearly Rs 1.60 crore cash from lockers, the keys of which were allegedly in the possession of Ravi Chandra. It also seized Rs 1.14 crore from the possession of T Balaji Rao, Chalapathi Rao's brother.
Pattabhirama Rao, as an additional special judge of CBI court, had granted bail to Reddy while rejecting the bail plea of suspended IAS officer Y Srilakshmi in the same case.
The Andhra Pradesh high court had suspended him on May 31 while transferring the matter to state ACB, which registered a case against him and seven others, including Chalapathi Rao and Janardhan Reddy's elder brother and Bellary city Member of Legislative Assembly Gali Somashekhar Reddy.
