SC to pass order on Oct 10 on mining baron G Janardhan Reddy’s plea to visit Bellary in Karnataka

The Supreme Court Friday said it will pass the order on October 10 on a plea by mining baron and former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy seeking permission to visit and stay for four weeks in his native district Bellary to meet his daughter, who has delivered a baby recently.

Reddy, accused in a multi-crore illegal mining case, has been out on bail since 2015 and several conditions were imposed by the apex court in its order, including prohibiting him from visiting Bellary in Karnataka and Ananthpur and Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh.

A bench of Justices M R Shah and Krishna Murari observed that it will be directing the trial court to hear the matter on a day-to-day basis and the prosecution shall have the duty to ensure that witnesses are present.

In pursuance of the apex court’s direction, the CBI informed the bench that the baby has been delivered at a hospital in Bangalore and now the child along with the mother is staying in Bellary.

Hearing the petition by Reddy on Thursday, the apex court had asked the agency to enquire into the issue and file a report on Friday.

Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, representing Reddy, submitted that the baby may have been born in Bangalore, but the mother and the child are now residing in Reddy’s hometown. She said the delivery took place on September 27, and now they are in Bellary.

Reddy was granted conditional bail by the apex court in January 2015 after spending more than three years in jail.

Reddy and his brother-in-law B V Srinivas Reddy, managing director of the Obalapuram Mining Company (OMC), were arrested by CBI on September 5, 2011, from Bellary and brought to Hyderabad.

The company is accused of changing mining lease boundary markings and indulging in illegal mining in the Bellary Reserve Forest area, spread over Bellary in Karnataka and the Ananthpur district of Andhra Pradesh.

While granting bail, the top court had directed him to surrender his passport before the concerned trial court and not to leave the country without the permission of the trial judge.