Sand mining baron Shekhar Reddy’s bail plea dismissed

CHENNAI: The principal special court for CBI cases in Chennai on Friday dismissed the bail petitions of

sand mining

baron and PWD contractor J

Shekhar Reddy

and his associates who were arrested on charges of cheating and

corruption

.

Income tax officials seized 127 kg gold and over Rs 170 crore in cash, including new currency notes, from the premises of Reddy and his associates two weeks ago. Last week, the CBI arrested Reddy and his associates V Srinivasalu, Dindigul Rathinam, Muthupettai Ramachandran and Prem Kumar. They have been accused of converting the unaccounted cash held by them in old currency notes to new notes with the help of officials of different banks.

They were booked under sections 13(1) and (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA). They are also facing charges for offences under IPC including criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy.

The CBI had sought custody of the accused. However, judge G Vijayalakshmi dismissed CBI’s petition too.

Though it was an open court proceeding, the judge directed the media to remain outside.

In the last hearing, counsels for the accused said as the arrested people were not public officials, charging them under the relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, (PCA) was wrong.

The public prosecutor underlined that the currency notes—belonging to Reddy—had been seized from the vehicle of one Rishikumar who was absconding.

The accused would be produced in the court on January 3 when their judicial custody ends.