Janardhan Reddy granted conditional bail; has nothing to do with Ambidant scam, says lawyer

Bengaluru: Bengaluru's local court granted conditional bail to mining baron Janardhan Reddy, ending his four-day jail stay. He has to submit a bond of Rs 1 lakh and surety signed by two persons including Raghuram Reddy of Malur, Karnataka.

Reddy was accused of demanding Rs 18 crore from Ambidant Marketing Pvt Ltd owner, Syed Ahmed Fareed to bribe the Election Directorate to stop them from raiding his properties.

Janardhan Reddy's lawyer Chandrashekhar has announced this as "victory of rule of law". Janardhan Reddy is being falsely implicated, he said. The court has proved that Janardhan Reddy has nothing to do with Ambidant company and its scam, he added.

Gali Janardhana Reddy was arrested on November 11 in this regard. Janardhan Reddy is the accused number 6 in the Ambidant Ponzi scam.

Justice Jagadish of 1 ACMM court had slammed the City Crime Branch (CCB) of digressing from the issue as they were more interested in accused no 6, who had charges of Rs 20 crore against him, whereas Fareed, the man in question for cheating people to the tune of Rs 600 crore was not being taken as seriously as Reddy, the court observed.

The court also questioned if Reddy was mentioned directly in the 1500 complaints filed against Ambidant. 

The bail plea was supposed to be heard on Monday, but due to the death of Union minister Ananth Kumar, the hearing was postponed to Tuesday. The judge, after hearing the case, reserved the judgment to Wednesday.

The CCB was searching for Reddy since November 9, as he was missing from his properties in Ballari, Molakalmuru (Karnataka) and Hyderabad. But on November 10, he later released a video stating that he is in Bengaluru.

Reddy was remanded to judicial custody till November 24 and is currently in Parappana Agrahara central jail.

Reddy was booked under sections 204 (destruction of evidence), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code, and multiple sections of Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.