Tapal Ganesh, mine owner who a lone battle against the illegal mining activities on the Inter-State boundary (ISB), allegedly by G. Janardhan Reddy’s company, has questioned the latter’s source of income for the extravagant wedding of his daughter and called for a thorough probe in this regard.
“Reddy does not have any source of income, especially after he was jailed on charges of indulging in large-scale illegal mining. That being the case, what is source of income to perform his daughter’s wedding extravagantly. Media reports say that Reddy has spent a whopping Rs. 5 crores for the invite alone and one cannot imagine the expenditure he would incur for the marriage,” he said, addressing a press conference here on Thursday.
Mr. Ganesh also sought to know what were the law enforcing agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax deaprtment, doing and why the Union and the State government had turned a blind eye on this.
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“I am not against the wedding. But, I am concerned about the source of his income. For, the CBI, which investigated the case under the supervision of Supreme Court, has said it had seized Reddy’s properties, his trial was still going on in the Supreme Court and other courts. Such being the case, from where is Mr. Reddy getting the money?” he asked.
He also took a dig at Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for not initiating any steps to recover the loss to the exchequer caused by illegal mining by Reddy and others, which he had promised during his Bengaluru-Ballari paadayatra in August 2010.
“The inaction of State and Union government only hints that Mr. Reddy still enjoys political clout and shows attempts are on to dilute the cases against Mr. Reddy so as to get him a ‘clean chit’.
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He said that he would be writing a letter to the Chief Justice of India, and also to CBI to take a serious view of the extravagant wedding and get an inquiry conducted.