HC stays CBI probe into illegal mining in Andhra Pradesh

Accused of illegal mining, the Reddy brothers of Bellary got a reprieve, while the Andhra Pradesh government suffered a blow, as the Andhra Pradesh high court stayed the investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the matter for six weeks. The CBI investigation had been requested by the state.

On Friday, the same court put on hold a 25 November decision by the government to suspend iron ore mining operations in the Anantapur area, where the Obulapuram Mining Co (OMC), run by Karnataka tourism minister Gali Janardhan Reddy and his family, has its operations.
Government officials said the state plans to appeal against both orders in the Supreme Court.

Justice Gopala Krishna Tamada passed the interim orders, which will be in force for six weeks from Monday, in a writ petition filed by OMC through its director B V Srinivas Reddy.

He challenged the notification issued by the Centre on December 1. The petitioner said that the union government had permitted the case to be taken up by the CBI on the basis of a request by the Andhra Pradesh government. But the notification issued by the union government did not disclose the reasons, his counsel said.

He averred that this constituted non-application of mind. He further argued that there was no criminal offence and it was a simple boundary dispute. Therefore, the case was not fit to be handed over to CBI.

T Niranjan Reddy, counsel for the CBI, reminded the court that it was not an issue of OMC and its iron ore mining activity that was bothering the centre. He said that a special task force had been constituted to investigate the angle of unaccounted monies from illegal mining reaching the militant Maoists.