ACB arrests AP judge accused of giving bail for bribe

The Andhra Pradesh anti-corruption bureau has arrested a judge who is accused of accepting a bribe in order to grant bail to prime accused in an illegal mining racket in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, G Janardhan Reddy.

Special CBI court judge T Pattabhirama Rao, who was earlier suspended by the Andhra Pradesh High court , was arrested by the anti-corruption bureay today and is likely to be produced before a court where the investigating agency is likely to seek his remand, CNN IBN reported.

The CBI had earlier claimed to have recovered nearly Rs 1.80 crore in Hyderabad from a bank locker, the keys of which were allegedly in possession of the son of the judge.

The agency had carried the search based on a source based input that a deal was allegedly struck between Rao and former Karnataka minister G Janardhana Reddy for granting bail to the latter in the illegal mining case. The former minister is still in judicial custody in Karnataka in another case.

The judge had granted bail to Reddy in the OMC illegal mining case in May while he rejected the bail application of IAS officer Y Srilakshmi, another accused in the scam.