CBI examines role of AP Home Min on grant of permits to OMC

Expanding the ambit of its probe into the illegal mining case involving the Obulapuram Mining Company, the CBI examined the role of Andhra Pradesh Home Minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy over leases and licenses granted to the firm during her stint as the Mines Minister.

CBI sleuths reached the residence of Sabitha Reddy here last night and sought information from her pertaining to the mining lease licenses and permits awarded to OMC to carry out mining in the state, official sources said today.

Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) is owned by former Karnataka minister and mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy.

Sabitha was Mines Minister in the Cabinet of late chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy during 2004-09 when the mining leases were alloted to OMC to undertake mining activities in Anantapur district of the state.

“A team of CBI officials gathered details from the minister (Sabitha Reddy) with regard to some mining licenses issued to OMC among others,” the sources said.

Meanwhile, Sabitha Indra Reddy said that “they (CBI) have not questioned me as such. They just sought some information on mining leases and I gave the information.”

The investigating agency, which has detected ‘irregularities’ in certain leases awarded to OMC between 2005 and 2009, has been questionning the role of officials (in grant of mining lease to OMC) who worked in the mines department during that period.

CBI has recorded the statements of former Andhra Pradesh Mines and Geology director V D Rajagopal and senior IAS officer Y Srilakshmi, who was then secretary of state Industries Department, for their alleged role in the illegal mining scam.

Both the bureaucrats have been named in the list of the accused after the CBI arrested former Karnataka Tourism Minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, and the company’s managing director B V Srinivas Reddy from Bellary in Karnataka on September 5. The duo are presently under judicial remand.

The OMC is accused of changing mining lease boundary markings between Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and indulging into ‘illegal’ mining in the Bellary Reserve Forest.

PTI