After the turn of the mining businessmen Konda Reddy and Sasi Kumar, it is now the turn of Mr Balakrishna reddy of Kurnool district to approach the CBI and offer evidence to prove the illegalities of Gali Janardhan reddy, the main accused in the illegal mining case.

On Monday, Balakrishna reddy met the CBI officials and offered to become one of the witnesses in the illegal mining case and against the tainted officials Srilakshmi and Rajagopal.

Balakrishna reddy told the CBI that several persons including himself had applied for iron ore mining leases in Kadapa, Kurnool and Khammam districts in 2008 but the then secretary in charge of mines Ms Srilakshmi had thrown all the applications into the dustbin saying the mines are reserved for the APMDC for which Rajagopal acted as the MD. He was also the director of the mining department.

He told the CBI that Srilakshmi and Rajagopal had resorted to the mode of reserving the mining rights to the APMDC to give the mining leases to the men of YSR later on.

“Along with me, 8 persons challenged this in the High Court and the court ordered to consider our applications also. But, Srilakshmi never cared for the court orders. When we threatened to file a contempt petition also, she didn’t care but asked us to approach YSR and KVP,” Balakrishna reddy told the CBI.

In the name of reserving the mining rights to the APMDC, the officials had rejected all the applications and later gave the mining leases to the men of YSR through the APMDC.

It might be recalled that in 2008, an area of 56,690 hectares was allotted to the APMDC at Bayyaram, Garla and Nelakondapalli in Khammm district but later it was allotted to Brother Anil Kumar, son-in-law of the late YSR. The allotment was later cancelled by the Central government after a hue and cry was raised. (JUB)