New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the
CBI to go after owners of the companies involved in illegal
mining in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh instead of restricting
its investigation to their employees.
A bench headed by Chief Justice SH Kapadia, after going
through the CBI status report submitted before it, asked the
probe agency to submit a more comprehensive report and queried
about the owners of Associated Mining Company (AMC) and Deccan
Mining Syndicate (DMS) who are allegedly involved in illegally
routed their minerals through Obulapuram in Andhra Pradesh.
In the last hearing the court had asked the investigating
agency to probe the "linkage" between mining activities in
Karnataka`s Bellary district and Ananthpur in Andhra Pradesh
allegedly involving the Reddy brothers.
The court had said that CBI investigation was needed as
it was prima facie satisfied with the materials placed before
it that the iron ore extracted by AMC and DMS, was being
illegally routed through Obulapuram in Andhra Pradesh.
AMC is owned by BJP leader and former Karnataka tourism
minister Janardhana Reddy, and his wife and DMS by another
mining baron SM Jain.
Both the companies, according to the report of the apex
court-appointed Central Empowered Committee, were involved in
illegal mining in the lease area of 10.12 hectares in the
village Jaisingapur village and there were irregularities in
renewal of lease.
PTI
