2 more ‘tainted’ judges held

HYDERABAD: The anti-corruption bureau (ACB) sleuths on Thursday formally arrested judges D Prabhakar Rao and K Lakshminarasimha Rao, bringing the number of judges arrested to four in mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy cash-for-bail case. Both Prabhakar, a family court judge at Srikakulam , and Lakshminarasimha , chief judge of small causes court in Hyderabad, have already been suspended.
The two judges, whose houses were raided on Wednesday by the ACB, were charged with conspiring with the mining baron’s men to influence CBI court judge T Pattabhirama Rao into granting bail to Gali in return for Rs 10 crore as bribe. On Thursday evening, ACB sleuths produced both Prabhakar and Lakshminarasimha before principal special judge S Jagannadham of the ACB court, who remanded them in judicial custody till July 26.
Pattabhi, the disgraced CBI judge who gave bail to Gali on May 11, and his friend T V Chalapathi Rao – a retired district judge who struck the deal for Rs 5 crore – have already been arrested.
The ACB remand report detailed the efforts made by Lakshminarasimha, Prabhakar and real estate broker Ravi Suryaprakash Babu to put pressure on CBI court judge Pattabhi into granting bail to the mining baron in return for a cash booty of Rs 10 crore.
While Suryaprakash went to Bellary and met Gali Somashekhar Reddy, Bellary MLA Sriramulu and another MLA K H Suresh Babu and struck a deal for Rs 15 crore, Lakshminarasimha was at the same time holding meetings in Hyderabad with Prabhakar to fix the deal with Pattabhi. It was finally left to Prabhakar to influence Pattabhi as he was his batchmate.
But Gali Janardhan Reddy’s men did not rely on Prabhakar’s efforts alone. They had opened another channel through retired district judge Chalapathi, a trusted friend of the CBI court judge. Though this deal was only for Rs 5 crore, Pattabhi chose this route because Chalapati did not put any preconditions for carrying out the task. Whereas the other group led by Prabhakar Rao wanted Pattabhi to meet one of Gali Janardhan Reddy’s men to strike the deal.
Gali got bail but CBI additional SP R M Khan unearthed the behind-thescenes dealings and alerted the AP high court. Later, the case was entrusted to ACB for investigation.
The remand report also details how Lakshminarasimha , in his earlier capacity as a high court registrar (enquiries), tried unsuccessfully to influence the previous CBI court judge, Nagamaruti Sarma.
ACB sleuths collected the call details of all the accused and, together with their confessions , filed the case under sections 8, 9 and 10 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and also under IPC sections that deal with criminal conspiracy, criminal misconduct and abuse of official position.