“Justice After 14 Years”: Ex-Karnataka Minister Janardhan Reddy Sentenced to 7 Years in Illegal Mining Case
In a major verdict that comes after over a decade of legal proceedings, a special CBI court in Hyderabad on Tuesday convicted former Karnataka minister and MLA Gali Janardhan Reddy in the infamous Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) illegal mining case.
Mr Reddy, along with three others, has been sentenced to seven years of imprisonment and fined Rs 10,000 each. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh on the OMC, where Mr Reddy served as a director. He was listed as accused number two in the case.
The verdict was delivered by Principal Special Judge for CBI cases, T Raghu Ram, nearly 14 years after the CBI filed its first chargesheet in December 2011. The court found Mr Reddy guilty of illegally mining in the ecologically sensitive Bellary Reserve Forest area along the Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border by tampering with mining lease boundaries between 2007 and 2009. The scam allegedly caused a staggering loss of Rs 884 crore to the public exchequer.
Soon after the judgment, the CBI took Mr Reddy and the other convicted individuals into custody.
Others convicted include Srinivas Reddy (A1), Mr Reddy’s brother-in-law and OMC Managing Director; VD Rajagopal (A3), former Assistant Director of Mines and Geology; and Mehafuz Ali Khan (A7), Mr Reddy’s personal assistant.
The court, however, acquitted former minister Sabitha Indra Reddy and ex-bureaucrat B Krupanandam. Senior IAS officer Y Srilakshmi had already been discharged from the case by the Telangana High Court in 2022.
The CBI’s prosecution team was led by Public Prosecutor Inderjeet Santoshi and Assistant Public Prosecutor Vishnu Majji.
This ruling marks a significant moment in India’s efforts to bring justice in high-profile corruption and environmental abuse cases.
News Source : Information for this article was gathered from a variety of reliable news outlets.
