Hyderabad: The CBI Special Court on Tuesday delivered its final verdict in the long-pending Obulapuram mining case, sentencing former Karnataka minister and current Gangavathi MLA Gali Janardhan Reddy to seven years of imprisonment. The court also handed the same sentence to three other accused in the case.
Gali Janardhan Reddy, who currently represents the Gangavathi constituency in the Karnataka Assembly, may now face disqualification under the Representation of the People Act due to his conviction. He had floated his own party, Kalyana Rajya Pragati Paksha, and won the 2023 assembly election before rejoining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The verdict concludes a legal process that spanned over 13 years. The CBI court examined more than 3,400 documents and heard depositions from 219 witnesses. The charges centred on illegal mining by Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC), operated by the Reddy brothers, which allegedly caused a loss of ₹884.13 crore to the Karnataka state exchequer by encroaching on forest lands.
This is not the first time Gali Janardhan Reddy has been imprisoned in connection with the OMC case. He previously spent time in jail before securing bail.
While the conviction marks a major development in the high-profile mining scandal, Gali Janardhan Reddy is likely to challenge the judgment in a higher court.
