Reacting to the final verdict of the Hyderabad CBI court in the Anantapur district Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC) case, former CBI JD VV Lakshmi Narayana, who was the investigating officer, said that only if those involved in irregularities are punished, the rest will be afraid. He suggested that special courts should be set up in such incidents.
On this occasion, he also shared some of the experiences he faced during the investigation of the case. He said that there is a lot of procedure for granting mining leases, and bias was seen in this case from the beginning. He said that the lease terms were also incorrectly applied and only applications received on the same day were considered. He said that these mines mainly grant captives, and the captives were removed later.
VV Lakshmi Narayana revealed that the mineral extracted from one mine was shown to have been extracted from another mine. He said that satellite images were used to prove irregularities in this case and the help of NRSC and Singareni organizations was taken in the investigation.
Lakshmi Narayana revealed that they had faced a lot of difficulties to prove the irregularities and that obtaining evidence was a challenging task. He recalled that they had maintained a lot of secrecy during the arrest of Janardhan Reddy and went and arrested him in the guise of IT officials.
He said that minerals worth Rs. 840 crores were illegally transported and that the illegal transportation was completed by the time they entered the field. He also said that the irregularities that had taken place had to be proven and that maps on mineral mining had been obtained from the US.
Lakshmi Narayana believed that the ED investigation could also continue soon. He said that some people may go to the High Court against the CBI court verdict and asked for special courts to be set up in such incidents.
He said that if the investigation goes on for a long time, many changes will occur and witnesses may change their words in such cases. Lakshmi Narayana said that the law will be used to delay a lot and that the officers who investigate will get the cases resolved quickly. He said that the Obulapuram mining case can be seen as a case study in the matter of economic crimes.
