Reddy brothers in trouble; CBI raids mining co in Bellary

The Bellary brothers are in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s radar. The CBI on Thursday conducted searches at the offices of the Reddy brothers, who are Ministers in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka, reports CNBC-TV18’s Deepa Balakrishnan.



Here is a verbatim transcript of Deepa Balakrishnan’s comments on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.



It’s a mixed bag of news for the politically powerful Reddy brothers of Bellary in Northern Karnataka. First of all they have been facing the CBI raids on the head offices of Obalipuram mining company, which has its head office in Bellary. The office as well as home of Janaraan Reddy, who runs that company have been raided and documents have been seized. What source are telling us is some Compact Disks as well as computer hard disk has been seized. This would have data that would pertain to their probes into illegal mining activities that is what we gather from sources.



Reason behind CBI”s raid:



There are three basic issues here. Firstly, this relates to the illegal mining activities in Anantpur District in Andhra Pradesh, Obalipuram mining company has its head office in Bellary but most of their mining operations have been in Anantpur district in Andhra. Secondly, there have been serious allegations as well reports from AP Government’s forest department of illegal encroachment on forest land. Thirdly, there have been specific questions related to their illegal operations going to such an extent they have changed the interstate boundary between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. So these are the primary questions being probed by the CBI. The CBI probe was actually sort for by the AP Government and it has the backing of the Union ministry of forest and environment.



AP High Court order provides some relief:



At the same time, the Supreme Court’s CEC has also said that mining operations of this company are illegal and they want a deeper investigation into it. At the same time the AP High Court has now come out with an order setting aside the government order, which bans the mining activity. The government had banned mining activity on November 25, 2009 after reports from the forest department about illegal encroachments. Now, that ban has been set aside and the AP High Court says they can go ahead with their mining operations despite the probe and the survey that has been ordered. They say the survey and the probe can happen side by side with the mining operations. So the Reddy brothers getting getting some relief from the AP High Court order wherein, first of all they can résumé their mining activity. Secondly, they are also allowed to transport the already explored iron ore of 1.25 lakh tonne and use that for either sale or export as they had originally planned.