The Bangalore Zonal Office of the Enforcement Directorate has attached Rs24.37 crores from Associated Mining Company owned by Gali Janardhana Reddy and his wife lakshmi Aruna. A Press release issued in Bengaluru on Tuesday said, “ ED has attached Rs24.37 crore from three accounts of JSW Steel ltd, Torangallu as the same is purchase price of the illegally mined iron ore which was paid by JSW steel.”
According to the release, the total proceeds of the crime attached by the ED in the matter of Associate Mining Company goes upto Rs62.09 crore. Gali Janardhana Reddy, former Minister and the main accused in the Rs16,085 crore illegal mining scam in Karnataka, was in Jail for over three years. The 48-year-old BJP Minister was indicted by the then lokayukta Justice N Santosh Hegde in his report in 2011.
Reddy, who had allegedly bribed a judge, T Pattabhirama Rao, in Hyderabad with Rs60 crore to secure bail in 2012, was rearrested within five minutes of being released by the CBI. As the BJP Ballari district president, Reddy is said to have bankrolled the 2008 Assembly and 2009 lok Sabha polls in Karnataka which saw the ascendance of the party in the State.
He is also credited with the strategy called ‘Operation Kamala’, in which legislators from Opposition parties resigned and got re-elected on the BJP ticket. This strategy ensured the BS Yeddyurappa minority Government in the State to became stable in 2008.