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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) said, on Monday, November 24, that it has attached Rs 80 crore worth of assets of Santosh Sand and Granite Supply, owned by the brother of Telangana MLA Gudem Mahipal Reddy, in an alleged illegal mining case.
The company’s proprietor Gudem Madhusudhan Reddy and others are accused of earning Rs 300 crore through illegal mining, and also causing revenue loss of Rs 39 crore to the government.
Madhusudhan’s brother Mahipal Reddy is a three-time MLA from Patancheru constituency, having won all three times on a Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) ticket. He joined Congress only in July 2024, after the Lok Sabha elections. The development came soon after the ED began investigating the illegal mining allegations against his brother’s company.
The ED had questioned both the brothers in July last year following raids at seven locations associated with them.
Mahipal Reddy is also one of the 10 BRS MLAs who are currently facing disqualification proceedings for defecting to Congress.
The ED had initiated the investigation on the basis of FIRs registered by Patancheru Police, which alleged that the people running Santosh Sand and Granite Supply have cheated the state government “by carrying out excess mining in the assigned quarry area and also carrying out illegal mining in unassigned government land.”
It is alleged that this caused a revenue loss of Rs 39.08 crore in the form of royalty to the government. The proprietor of the firm and others are also accused of “wrongfully enriching themselves” by Rs 300 crore through illegal mining.
ED conducted searches during its investigation, seizing several original property documents from Gudem Madhusudhan Reddy. The agency has alleged that though these properties were in the names of other people, they were all Madhusudhan Reddy’s benamis.
The ED has also alleged that while the government granted a mining license to Madhusudhan Reddy’s Santosh Sand and Granite Supply, the company sub-contracted the work to GVR Enterprises, a firm in which Madhusudhan Reddy and another man named G Vikram Reddy are partners. This was done in violation of the mining lease agreement and without permission from the government, ED said.
The illegally mined products were mostly sold in cash, and the proceeds of crime were invested in properties registered in the name of benamis, according to ED.
The Hyderabad Zonal Office of the ED said that it has provisionally attached properties worth Rs 80.05 crore – including 81 properties valued at Rs 78.93 crore and fixed deposits worth Rs 1.12 crore – under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).