Chennai: The principal special court for CBI cases on Friday rejected bail petitions of PWD contractor and sacked Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam board member J. Sekhar Reddy and his business associates, arrested by CBI on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and under the Prevention of Corruption Act after Income Tax sleuths seized a total of Rs. 131 crore cash, including Rs. 34 crore worth new currency notes of Rs 2,000 and 177 kg gold from them during raids recently.
The principal special judge for CBI cases, G. Vijayalakshmi, also rejected police custody petition filed by CBI. On December 21, CBI sleuths arrested J. Sekhar Reddy, and his associate V. Sreenivasulu.
Subsequently, they arrested Sekhar Reddy’s auditor Premkumar, Dindugal Rathinam and Muthupettai Ramachandran. On behalf of accused, advocates from New Delhi appeared before the court when the matter came up for hearing earlier this week.
In the bail plea, Sekhar Reddy submitted the seized currencies were lawfully earned by him from the sand mining operation in 25 days since demonetisation. Others also submitted that they were innocent.
Meanwhile, CBI also moved police custody petition seeking the court’s permission to interrogate them to obtain more details regarding the illegal transactions and illegal exchange of new currencies. When the petitions came up for hearing on Friday, the judge dismissed bail and police custody petitions.
