CEC mines another Reddy scam, seeks CBI probe

The Reddy brothers are heading for more trouble with the Supreme Court appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) nailing another of Reddys’ lie: that they had no mining interests in Karnataka.

With the latest CEC report, filed before the SC on September 21, unearthing evidence of Reddys’ skulduggery, the CEC has recommended a CBI probe into the case.

In the report, the CEC has revealed that there were irregularities pertaining to the Associated Mining Company (AMC) owned by Janardhana Reddy and his wife Aruna Lakshmi.

The CEC found rampant irregularities, including illegal renewal of its licence to conduct mining operations.

According to the report, AMC was granted a lease to mine on 16.19 hectares of land which expired on March 1, 1996,

Jaisingapur in Sandur taluk. However, the lease was renewed for just 10.12 hectares on December 8, 2003, for a further period of 10 years with effect from March 24, 2000. Surprisingly, the lease was renewed after a gap of 7 years, which is a violation of renewal rules.

Not just this, the licence was renewed by showing an earlier date, March 24, 2000. The renewal clearly shows that there was no valid lease from March 2, 1996 to March 23, 2000. As per the rules concerning renewal of mining licences, the lease in this case should have been treated as a fresh lease and not as renewal, so the lease granted was illegal, the report stated.

The report says that the lease was effectively transferred to former minister G Janardhana Reddy and his wife G Lakshmi Aruna with effect from October 1, 2009, by adopting dubious means in order to get themselves admitted as new partners and ensuring the retirement of all the existing partners of that time.

In 2009-2010 alone, over one million tonnes of iron ore was mined from the 10.12 hectares of the land. According to the report, it was impossible to mine such a huge amount of iron ore from such a small area.

“The transit permits for the transportation of the iron-ore would have not been physically possible to transport huge quantity of iron-ore. It appears permits were only on papers,” the report stated.

“The permits were used for the transportation of iron-ore mined from the other areas,” the report added. The original sketch of 16.19 hectares and the present lease of 10.12 hectares need a detailed investigation, the report stated.

The series of illegalities committed by AMC is due to the favour shown by the officials of Karnataka state, it added.

Among the other irregularities committed by the AMC included the deployment of an additional 17 foresters just two days before the lease expiry date, payments of royalty made from the bank accounts of mining company of BR Yogendranath Singh, one million tonnes of iron-ore mined without paying Rs192 lakhs of forest department tax (FDT).

Considering the irregularities, the CEC is recommending a CBI investigation into the affairs of AMC also. The CEC further stated that the CBI, which at present is investigating six mining leases in Bellary reserved forest falling in Ananthapur district, to investigate the AMC case and also with regard to the illegal mining done in the lease area of ML number 1111 belonging to NMDC Ltd.