HYDERABAD: The Enforcement Directorate, which is probing into Obulapuram Mining Company’s illegal iron ore mining case has filed its charge sheet in the case before the designated ED court in Hyderabad.
The ED, by invoking the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, has named mining baron and former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, OMC managing director BV Srinivas Reddy and few others as accused in the case.
It may be mentioned here that the CBI first registered the case against the alleged illegal mining carried out by OMC in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh state and its misuse of the mining lease granted by the then government.
Later on, the ED had also registered a case and started probing the matter. The ED has now filed the charge sheet in the case after tracking the trail of money under PMLA.
According to the CBI charge sheet filed earlier in the case, the OMC got two leases for extracting iron ore in an extent of about 108 hectares in D Hirehal mandal of the district. The leased area spread over two different locations. Though not much of the ore was extracted from these two locations, the OMC has used them for ‘legalising’ its 190 lakh tonnes of illegal iron ore extracted from Karnataka.
The then AP authorities had extended several undue benefits to the company owned by Gali Janardhan Reddy. They issued huge number of transport permits to give an official colour to this iron ore. The mining baron had made Rs 4,310 crore through this illegal mining activity.