By IANS,
Hyderabad : A special court here Friday sent Mehfuz Ali Khan, personal assistant of former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, to judicial custody till Oct 17 in the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) illegal mining case.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) presented Khan in the CBI court, which sent him to judicial remand. He was later shifted to Chanchalguda Central Jail.
Khan, who had surrendered in a Bangalore court in the Associated Mining Company (AMC) case in March, was brought to Hyderabad on a prisoner transit warrant issued by the court last month.
The CBI court also adjourned hearing on a CBI petition, seeking his custody for questioning him.
The personal assistant had escaped after his boss and mining baron Janardhana Reddy was arrested by the CBI in the OMC case last year. He surfaced in March and surrendered before a court in Bangalore after Janardhana Reddy was shifted from Hyderabad to Bangalore jail in connection with the AMC case.
The CBI, which seized Khan’s laptop, wants to question him in regard to the irregularities committed by the OMC in iron ore mining in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Friday produced Janardhana Reddy in the ACB court in the cash-for-bail scam. The court extended his judicial custody till Oct 19 and also adjourned hearing on his bail plea.
Janardhana Reddy, who had allegedly bribed a CBI special judge to get bail, was brought from Bangalore to Hyderabad last month. As his judicial custody ended Friday, the ACB produced him in the court.
In the cash-for-bail scam, the Andhra Pradesh High Court Friday granted bail to Janardhana Reddy’s follower and Karnataka legislator T.H. Suresh Babu. The court granted bail in one of the two cases booked against him. Babu, who represents Kampli assembly constituency in Bellary district, was directed to deposit a personal bond of Rs.1 lakh and surrender his passport.
The high court also granted bail to Janardhana Reddy’s relative Dasaradharami Reddy.
The court Sep 25 had granted bail to suspended judges T. Pattabhirama Rao and K. Lakshminarasimha Rao. Janardhana Reddy’s brother and Karnataka legislator G. Somasekhara Reddy was also given bail.
Suspended CBI judge Pattabhirama Rao had allegedly received Rs.10 crore as bribe to grant bail to Janardhana Reddy in the OMC case in May this year. The high court had later cancelled the bail.