Thaindian News

Hyderabad, March 1 (IANS) Former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhana Reddy is all set to be shifted to Bangalore by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) but suspense remains on how he will be taken there.

Janardhana Reddy, who is at the Chanchalguda Central Jail here in connection with the illegal mining case, Wednesday filed a petition before a court demanding that he be taken to Bangalore in a helicopter or a special aircraft.

Janardhana Reddy offered to pay expenses for the air travel. He claimed that he faced a threat to his life if taken to Bangalore by road.

The special court dealing with the CBI cases, however, left it to the jail authorities to take a decision in this regard in accordance with the rules and the jail manual.

The court also adjourned the hearing on Janardhana Reddy’s a petition seeking directions to the CBI to return his chopper. The federal agency had seized his chopper and cars after his arrest.

Janardhana Reddy, who has been lodged in the jail here since September last year, is to be presented before a court in Bangalore Friday in another case of illegal mining.

A team of CBI officials from Bangalore met the jail authorities and submitted prisoner transit warrant issued by the Bangalore court in the case relating to illegal mining by Associated Mining Company (AMC) owned by him and his wife Lakshmi Aruna.

It was not clear if the CBI team would take him to Bangalore, a distance of about 600 km, by road or by a flight.

The CBI Sep 5 arrested the former minister from Bellary in Karnataka in the illegal mining case involving his Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC). The investigating agency had booked a case against OMC in 2009 for the alleged illegal mining in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.

Along with him, the CBI had also arrested his brother-in-law and OMC managing director B.V.Srinivasa Reddy. He would remain in Chanchalguda jail as the Bangalore court has not sought his presence.