BENGALURU: Accusing the state government of misusing its machinery to tarnish his as well as the party’s image, former BJP minister and mining baron G Janardhana Reddy has moved the Karnataka High Court by filing two separate petitions.
In one petition, Reddy has sought quashing of the FIR registered by DJ Halli police over the alleged ponzi scam, saying that the police are trying to implicate him falsely.
In the other petition, Reddy has requested the court to issue directions to the Home Department to entrust the investigation to competent officers other than DCP S Girish and ACP H N Venkatesh Prasanna, Central Crime Branch (CCB), accusing them of harassing one of the accused in the case and canvassing that Reddy would be arrested even though his name was not mentioned in the FIR.
In the petition, Reddy’s counsel Chandrashekhar RP said that the police ought to have investigated the case diligently instead of leaking details of proof to media while the case was still under investigation. It reflected a careless approach of the police towards the investigation of a crime which ought to have been very confidential, Reddy’s counsel said.
Chandrashekhar stated that an FIR was registered by DJ Halli police on May 29, 2018 against the directors of Ambidant Marketing Pvt Ltd for alleged offences under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Scheme (Banning) Act, alleging that they had collected money from public by deceiving them.
All the directors — Syed Ahmed Fareed, Sayed Afaq Ahmad and Ifran Ahmad — were on anticipatory bail. Later, a person named Ramesh was arrested on October 27, 2018 and he was arraigned as accused no.4, the counsel said. A day before he was produced before the magistrate, Ramesh was assaulted by DCP Girish and ACP Venkatesh Prasanna.
“Reddy has absolutely no connection with Ambidant and though the police are fully aware of the said fact, at the behest of the political rivals and under the pressure of the present government, is making hectic attempts to somehow falsely implicate him,” the petition, which is yet to come up for hearing, stated.