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Illegal mining case: Supreme Court hearing today on Janardhana Reddy’s Ballari visit
In January 2015, the Supreme Court had granted conditional bail to Reddy who had, by then, spent more than three years in jail.
The Supreme Court will on Friday hear Karnataka mining baron G Janardhana Reddy’s plea seeking permission to travel to his home district, Ballari, to visit his ailing father-in-law.
Reddy, accused in a multi-crore illegal mining case, is out on bail but on the top court’s direction is barred from visiting Ballari.
His application was on Thursday mentioned before a vacation bench led by Justice Indira Banerjee, which agreed to give it an urgent hearing.
In his application, Reddy, a former Karnataka minister, said his father-in-law was admitted to the ICU of a hospital in Ballari since his health had deteriorated.
In January 2015, the Supreme Court had granted conditional bail to Reddy who had, by then, spent more than three years in jail. As part of his bail conditions, Reddy was directed by the court not to visit Ballari as well as Ananthapur and Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Reddy and his brother-in-law BV Srinivas Reddy, managing director of the Obalapuram Mining Company (OMC), on September 5, 2011 from Ballari and took them to Hyderabad.
The agency has charged OMC with changing mining-lease boundary markings and indulging in illegal mining in Ballari Reserve Forest area, which also extends to Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.
