HYDERABAD: A special court Friday adjourned to Monday the hearing on the bail petition of former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhana Reddy and his brother-in-law Srinivasa Reddy, arrested in an illegal mining case.The Central Bureau of Investigation's petition seeking their custody will also be heard then.After hearing the arguments of both sides till late in the evening, the special court for CBI cases adjourned the case to Monday.The arguments which began in the morning continued till 7.30 p.m. and the judge adjourned the hearing at the request of Janardhana Reddy's lawyer Udai Lalit, who flew in to the city in the afternoon by a special aircraft to argue the case.In an unusual move, Judge B. Nagamurthi Sharma heard the arguments for over seven hours and was even prepared to do so till late in the night to decide on both the petitions but Lalit, a senior Supreme Court lawyer, sought the adjournment.Lalit is the special public prosecutor in the 2G spectrum case that is being heard in a CBI court in Delhi.While seeking custody of the accused for 15 days, the CBI counsel told the court that the agency had all the evidence against the accused. The investigating agency also submitted to the court documents and other evidences.Lalit argued that Janardhana Reddy is innocent and that CBI is trying to implicate him in a false case. He said his counsel was only a director of Obulapuram Mining Corporation (OMC) and can't be termed an accused for any irregularities that might have been committed by lower level employees.Opposing CBI's petition for the custody of the accused, senior counsel Nageshwar wondered what the CBI wants to find out from them. Saying the CBI should question the ministers and officials in the case, he said his clients were not even names as accused in the FIR registered by CBI in 2009.Public prosecutor Balla Ravindranath opposed the bail petition on the grounds that the accused might tamper with the evidence or even flee the country.He told the court that the accused earned thousands of crores through illegal mining. The court was informed that they exported the iron ore mined illegally to China, Singapore and Malaysia. "The accused have so far exported 23 lakh tonnes of iron ore," he said.Explaining the reasons for seeking custody of the accused, the CBI counsel said facts can be unraveled only by questioning them.He also claimed the accused had intimidating their employees both in Obulapuram and Bellary and nobody was opening his mouth.The court was also informed that the satellite images show that no mining took place from 2007 to 2010 in the area leased by Andhra Pradesh government to the OMC owned by Janardhana Reddy.The CBI arrested Janardhana Reddy and OMC managing director Srinivasa Reddy after raiding their houses early Monday in Bellary in Karnataka.The same day they were brought to Hyderabad and the CBI court remanded them to judicial custody till Sep 19. They are currently lodged at the Chanchalguda Central Jail here.
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