Justice KC Bhanu of the High Court on Tuesday admitted a writ petition filed by suspended judge K Lakshmi Narasimha Rao seeking a CBI probe into grant of bail to mining baron and former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy.
The judge ordered issuance of notices to principal secretary (home), CBI joint director, ACB director-general and two others, asking them to file counter-affidavits. He adjourned the matter for hearing after two weeks.
Narasimha Rao, in his petition, claimed that he was in no way connected with the bail scam and requested the court to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation to proceed with the investigation into the case but sought a stay on further probe by the Anti-Corruption Bureau. He alleged that the investigation conducted by ACB joint director Sampath Kumar and his team was unfair and biased with an intention to save law minister Erasu Pratap Reddy.
Accordingly, the ACB officials concerned were trying to falsely implicate him in the case, he said. Narasimha Rao, chief judge of the city small causes court, was arrested on July 7 and lodged in the Cherlapally central prison for his alleged involvement in the bail scam. Another judge, D Prabhakar Rao, a family court judge in Srikakulam, was also arrested for allegedly making parallel attempts to secure bail for Janardhan Reddy who was arrested on September 5, 2011 in connection with illegal mining by the Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC). Both were suspended by the High Court after the ACB had unearthed their role in the scam.