K’taka gets more time for info on nod to attach Janardhana Reddy assets

The High Court of Karnataka granted the State government two more days to give information on the delay in granting permission to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to attach former minister Gali Janardhana Reddy’s properties.

The court asked the government why it had not given the go-ahead to attach the properties worth Rs 19 crore while it had earlier sanctioned attachment of Rs 64-crore assets.

The CBI sought 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.

On December 25 last year, he announced the launch of a new political party ‘Kalyana Rajya Pragati Paksha’. An accused in the illegal mining case, he has severed his two decades old association with the BJP.

Re-entering electoral politics from outside Ballari district of the State, he said he would contest the 2023 Assembly polls from Gangavathi in Koppal district.