The CBI on Thursday sent a team of officials to Kadapa MP Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy's house at Lotus Pond in Jubilee Hills here to assess its cost. The action is part of the probe into the illegal assets case the agency has filed against the MP in the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
The team spent close to seven hours in the building located on a plot measuring nearly 6,000 sq. yards and is said to have a built-up area of over 80,000 sq.ft. spread over four floors. The agency has expedited the probe in the last couple of days by questioning several persons.
The CBI had undertaken a search-cum-seizure operation at the office-cum-residence on August 18 as part of the probe it launched at the instance of the High Court.
In the other case booked by the CBI on irregularities in land allotment by Emaar Properties, a senior officer and former vice-chairman of the A.P. Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, L.V. Subrahmaniam, appeared before the agency. He is presently the Executive Officer of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams.
Attachment process
The agency is in the process of attaching the movable and immovable properties of the former Karnataka Minister, Gali Janardhana Reddy, and Managing Director of the Obulapuram Mining Corporation (OMC), B.V. Srinivas Reddy, both of whom are lodged in jail on charges of illegal mining.
CBI Joint Director V.V. Lakshmi Narayana told The Hindu that the process of attaching the properties of the accused in Bellary, Bangalore and other places was on.
Sources in the CBI said the attachment of properties was being taken up to prevent it changing hands.
The agency would invoke provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Act to attach the properties. It had deployed nearly 60 officers to collect evidence in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Mangalore, Bellary and Anantapur.
The CBI had already informed the court that Mr. Janardhana Reddy and Mr. Srinivas Reddy were involved in exporting iron ore to benami companies at a rate much less than the market value and the money raised by selling the consignments abroad was invested by these companies in the business ventures of the Reddys. A huge amount of money was used to buy properties.
