Bengaluru, May 6 (UNI) A CBI court here on Tuesday sentenced former Karnataka Minister and mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy and three others to seven years of rigorous imprisonment in the long-pending Obulapuram illegal mining case.

Delivering its verdict nearly 14 years after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed the chargesheet, the Principal Special Judge for CBI cases, T Raghu Ram, held Reddy, accused number two, guilty of tampering with mining lease boundary markers and conducting illegal mining operations in the Ballari Reserve Forest region straddling the Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border.

Along with Reddy, the court convicted Srinivas Reddy (A1), Managing Director of Obulapuram Mining Company and Reddy's brother-in-law; VD Rajagopal (A3), the then Director of Mines and Geology; and Mehafuz Ali Khan (A7), Reddy's personal assistant.

Each of the four convicts was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined Rs 10,000, while the company was penalised Rs 1 lakh. Following the pronouncement of judgment, all four were taken into custody by the CBI.

However, the court acquitted former Andhra Pradesh Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy and retired IAS officer B Krupanandam for lack of evidence.

Reddy, a former MLA from Gangawati, had floated the Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha in 2022 and later rejoined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on March 25, 2024.

The high-profile case has been one of the most significant in India's illegal mining scandals, drawing attention to regulatory lapses and political patronage in the extractive sector.

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