As more details of the case emerge in jailed former minister Gali Janardhan Reddy’s “mining bribe for bail” scam, highly placed sources revealed that the bribe involved was not Rs 5 crore or Rs 15 crore but a massive Rs 60 crore package deal that would have ensured that the mine baron was off the hook in the Obulapuram mining case in Andhra Pradesh.
Of the Rs 60 crore deal allegedly meant to be distributed to rowdy sheeters, AP state minister, sitting judges, ex-judges, lawyers and a former journalist, top sources involved in investigating mining scam told Deccan Chronicle that Rs 15 crore has been paid in advance by Janardhan Reddy’s associates. This is the cash that CBI sleuths were working to recover, sources said.
Shockingly, Janardhan Reddy’s men — allegedly the Kampli MLA and his nephew Suresh, and one of the Reddy brothers, Somashekhar and Reddy’s advocate — had prepared a similar plan to procure bail for the imprisoned mining czar in the Associated Mining Company’s case in Karnataka by offering huge bribes in this state. They believed that since they had pulled it off with Hyderabad’s CBI special court judge Pattabhi Ramarao granting bail to Reddy on May 12, they could do the same in Karnataka.