Hyderabad: Former judge Dara Prabhaker Rao, who was accused of channelling money to a judge to arrange bail for Karnataka mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy, was found dead at his residence on Sunday evening.
His body was found when his wife Dr Marilyn Prabhalatha and son David Prashanth, who stay at Kompally, Hyderabad, came to their home at East Marredpally, Secunderabad, on Sunday to pick him on their way to church.
When he did not open the door, they broke into the house with help from neighbours and found the body of Prabhakar Rao on the floor in the hall. His son had last spoken to Prabhaker Rao at about 8.30 pm on Saturday.The funeral was held on Sunday.
Prabhaker Rao, who was out on bail in the cash-for-bail scam, was fighting his case on his own. He was depressed at being implicated in the case, family sources said.
The family ruled out suicide and said he might have died due to cardiac arrest.
Police said that Prabhaker Rao, 62, belonging to Nalgonda, was staying at his house, Prema Nilayam on Street No. 7 in East Maredpally.
He was working as a judge in Srikakulam till he was suspended by the High Court in 2012. He was charged with criminal conspiracy to grant bail to mining baron Janardhan Reddy.
The judge was later arrested by the ACB and released on bail. He preferred to stay at his East Marredpally residence, while his family stayed in Kompally. His daughter Susan left for the US three months ago.
“He was found lying dead in the hall. There are no injuries. While sleeping on the cot he might have fallen off,” said Tukaramgate inspector T. Lakshminarayana.
Police suspects cardiac arrest but is awaiting the postmortem report. Based on a complaint from Rao’s wife police registered a case of suspicious death.
He was working in family court
Hyderabad: Prabhaker Rao, who was earlier Secretary (Legal) at the AP Election Commission, was working at the family court and was also the III additional district and sessions judge of Srikakulam when he was arrested by the ACB in July 2012.
He was one of the four judges who were arrested in the cash for bail scam. Eight persons including Prabha-ker Rao were arrested by the ACB in the '10 crore bail deal.
The deal came to light after T. Pattabhirama Rao, the CBI special court judge, granted bail to Janardhan Reddy and refused relief to IAS officer Y. Srilakshmi. Suspecting foul play, the CBI exposed the bribe deal.
Initially Janardhan Reddy's men approached Lakshminarsimha Rao to clinch the deal, who contacted D. Prabhaker.
Pattabhi came into the picture after he was posted as CBI judge, following the transfer of judge Nagamaruthi Sharma, who rejected Janardhan Reddy’s bail plea. Later, a fresh bail plea was filed and Pattabhi granted him bail.
Soon it came out that Pattabhi chose a route planned by his friend Chalapati though the deal was only for Rs 5 crore. The reason being, like Prabhaker, his friend did not put any condition that he should meet Janardhan’s brother Gali Somasekhara Reddy, before giving bail.
Pleading innocence, Prabhaker filed a criminal revision petition in the HC seeking exemption from the case.
But the HC refused to discharge him from the cash for bail scam. The court found no grounds to intervene and upheld the trial court's decision.
ACB arrested Pattabhi Rama Rao, along with serving judges D. Prabhaker Rao, K. Laxminarsimha Rao and retired judge T.V. Chalapathi Rao. Pattabhi's son Ravi Chandra, rowdy sheeter turned realtor P. Yadagiri and another realtor Suryaprakash were also arrested. The case is pending trial at the City Civil Court.
