CHENNAI: A vacation judge of the Madras High Court has granted bail to mining baron Shekher Reddy (49), who had been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on March 20 last.
Justice S Baskaran, who granted the relief on Friday said that Reddy and his associates Prem Kumar and Srinivasalu can be released on bail on their executing a personal bond for `10 lakh each with two solvent sureties each for a like sum to the satisfaction of the VIII Additional Sessions Court, CBI cases, Chennai.
They shall stay at New Delhi and report before the officer in charge of PMLA case, ED at Delhi, daily at 10 am, until further orders.
They shall surrender their passport before the ED and shall not leave the country without obtaining prior permission from the ED.
Earlier, the judge pointed out that the petitioners had been interrogated and were in custody for over 50 days in this case. In such circumstances, the plea of the petitioners that they have co-operated with the ED at all stages of investigation, that the amount alleged to have been recovered from them are their own business income, that there is no material to prove that they are guilty of the offence and that as the limitations of Sec 45 (1) of PMLA is not applicable it should be treated as regular bail under Sec 439 CrPC, should be entertained, the judge said.
“In view of the above said discussion, this court is of the view that the petitioners have made out a case for grant of bail. Accordingly, their criminal original petitions seeking bail are allowed, the judge said.
The judge, however, dismissed the anticipatory bail applications from Dindigul Rathinam and Pudukottai Ramachandran, the other associates of Reddy.
Originally, the CBI had seized `147 crore, including `34 crore in new 2,000 note currency and 177 kgs of gold and arrested and remanded Reddy in judicial custody in December last year. The other accused were arrested subsequently.
They, however, came out on bail in the middle of March last.
The Enforcement Directorate arrested them on the same charges on March 20 last and remanded them in judicial custody.