Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday questioned the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), why it did not record the statement of K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, former adviser to the United AP government, when his name was broached up by one of the witnesses with regard to granting iron ore mining licenses at Obulapuram.
Justice K. Lakshman was dealing with the quash petition filed by senior IAS officer Y. Srilakshmi, who requested to discharge her name from the cases registered by the CBI, in the case related to granting of mining licenses to Gali Janardhan Reddy in Obulapuram of Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh.
During the hearing, CBI counsel K. Surender argued that Srilakshmi’s request was not to be accepted. Explaining that Srilakshmi had committed abuse of power when she was holding a key post in granting mining licenses during Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy’s regime, the CBI counsel informed the court that the officer rejected all other applications that came before her for mining licenses, just to do favour to Gali Jandardhan Reddy.
Further, the CBI counsel also brought to the notice of the court that the probing agency had a statement of one witness for that. “One Shashi Kumar approached Srilakshmi to grant a license for mining. But, she asked him to contact
Ramachandra Rao, who was the then adviser to the government. She also said a larger amount would have to be paid for getting a license and she also suggested contacting V. D. Rajagopal, the then director of mines, to get help in this regard. Moreover, Shashi Kumar also testified that he was asked to arrange Rs 8 lakhs at the meeting,” the counsel told the court.
With this, the judge inquired whether the probing agency recorded the statement of Ramachandra Rao and questioned its omission, when the CBI counsel replied no statement was recorded.
Earlier, Raghavacharyulu, counsel for Srilakshmi argued that there was no evidence to show that illegal mining activities were done at Obulapuram. He also submitted that his client acted upon following the rules and procedures in granting licenses at Obulapuram. The case was adjourned to Thursday for further arguments.
