A CBI special court in Hyderabad on Tuesday, May 6, convicted mining baron and former BJP Minister Gali Janardhan Reddy and four others in the high-profile Obulapuram illegal mining case, bringing a 13-year-long trial to a close. The court sentenced the accused to seven years of imprisonment.
Among those convicted were BV Srinivasa Reddy, Managing Director of Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC); K Mehfuz Ali Khan, personal assistant to Gali Janardhan Reddy; VD Rajagopal, then Director of Mines; and the company itself, Obulapuram Mining Company. The court acquitted Sabitha Indra Reddy, former Andhra Pradesh Minister for Mines, and Kripanandam, a retired IAS officer who was then Secretary for Industries, citing insufficient evidence.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which registered the case in 2009, had filed four chargesheets naming a total of nine individuals.
According to the CBI, Obulapuram Mining Company operated by Reddy illegally extracted iron ore beyond its lease areas, including in protected forest lands of Karnataka, causing a loss of Rs 884.13 crore to the exchequer.
BV Srinivasa Reddy was named as accused No. 1 (A1), Gali Janardhan Reddy as A2, V.D. Rajagopal as A3, OMC as A4, and K. Mehfuz Ali Khan as A7—all of whom were found guilty. Kripanandam (A8) and Sabitha Indra Reddy (A9) were declared not guilty.
The other accused include A5, Lingareddy, a Forest Department official who passed away during the trial, and A6, senior IAS officer Srilakshmi, who was discharged from the case by the Telangana High Court in 2022.
The investigation spanned over a decade and involved the examination of more than 3,400 documents and the interrogation of 219 witnesses. The charges against Reddy and others included criminal conspiracy (Section 120B), cheating (Section 420), criminal breach of trust (Section 409), and forgery (Sections 468 and 471) under the Indian Penal Code, along with provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(d)).
Gali Janardhan served as a Minister under the Bharatiya Janata Party government until his arrest in 2011. In December 2022, he left the BJP and launched his own political party, the Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha (KRPP), through which he won the Gangavathi assembly seat in the 2023 Karnataka elections.
However, in March 2024, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Reddy merged the KRPP back into the BJP, rejoining the party unconditionally.