Hyderabad: The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) on Friday informed the Telangana High Court that they are in possession of 101 documents that manifest Telangana education minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy’s role in the illegal mining case.
The bench of Telangana HC headed by chief justice Ujjal Bhuyan was hearing a criminal revision plea filed by Sabitha Reddy challenging the decision of the Hyderabad CBI court that refused to discharge her from the illegal mining case involving mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy and his Obulapuram Mining Company.
During the argument, CBI’s special public prosecutor N Nagendran refuted the charge laid on the bureau of holding Sabitha an accused without any substantive material, by presenting the documentary evidence to prove their claim.
CBI counsel said that her actions helped private parties gain undue advantage and money, which was enough to convict a public servant in a corruption case.
“We laid our hands on 104 documents. Of them, 101 turned out to be new ones and we relied on them in our supplementary chargesheet, making Sabitha an accused in the case,” he said.
“She was asked to wait. She did not wait and took a decision favouring OMC when she was a minister in the united AP government,” CBI counsel said.
Requesting the HC to dismiss her plea, the counsel of the bureau said, “Sabitha may have signed the file because she did not know the legal consequences. But, ignorance of the law is no excuse. She has to face trial.”
Sabith’s counsel, E Uma Maheswara Rao in return said that the then-state government issued two GOs granting mining leases to OMC in 2007.
“Those two were legally scrutinised and no courts scrapped the GOs. She did her job consciously and not with ignorance as was alleged by CBI,” he added.
However, the case was adjourned to March 17.
The minister, in January, had sought relief from the charges laid against her by filing a criminal revision petition in the state’s HC.
Sabitha, in undivided AP, was the mining minister while Krupanandam and Srilakshmi were working as secretaries in the industries and mines department respectively when they were charged with conspiring with Janardhan Reddy and his OMC.
The CBI charged her with assisting mining baron G Janardhan Reddy in illegally extracting iron ore on the AP-Karnataka border and exporting it.
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