'Tainted judge sought Rs 500cr for Gali bail'

HYDERABAD: Suspended judge Lakshminarasimha Rao wanted to demand Rs 500 crore in exchange for bail for mining scam accused Gali Janardhan Reddy. However, that plan fell apart after judge Nagamaruthi Sharma refused to toe his line.
In his statement recorded under Section 164 of CrPC by Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths on July 16, chartered accountant-cum-realtor P Krishna Prasad, 52, who is close to Gali Janardhan's relative Dasaratharami Reddy, revealed that initially Lakshminarasihma's associates had thought of demanding Rs 500 crore from Gali & Co.
Krishna Prasad said that he had in April, 2012, met Dasaratharami Reddy in Hyderabad to discuss some real estate deals. Krishna Prasad was accompanied by his advocate friend Venkateswara Rao who is also a close relative of judge Lakshminarasimha Rao.
Krishna Prasad told ACB that, once, while himself and Venkateswara Rao were travelling with Dasaratharami Reddy in his car, they heard his assistant Suresh talking over the phone to someone about their attempts to secure bail for Gali Janardhan.
After finishing the conversation, Suresh enquired with Venkateswara Rao whether he knew any judge to which the advocate replied in positive. The following day, Dasaratharami Reddy asked Krishna Prasad to try to secure bail for Gali.
Prasad then communicated the request to Venkateswara Rao who told him that a deal was possible through his relative Lakshminarasimha and that they could easily demand Rs 500 crore from Gali for their services. "He said that since Gali Janardhan had made thousands of crores through illegal mining, giving Rs 500 crore to secure bail should not be a problem for the ex-Karnataka minister," Prasad told ACB investigators.
Thinking that Rs 500 crore was an impractical figure, Krishna Prasad went to Dasaratharami Reddy the day after to tell him that a deal was possible if it was to be for Rs 100 crore. Dasaratharami Reddy then told Krishna Prasad that he would discuss the offer with Somasekhar Reddy and requested Prasad to continue with his efforts.
However, the deal could not be struck as the then CBI judge Nagamaruthi Sharma rejected Lakshminarasimha's offer. Later, on May 10, Dasaratharami Reddy met Krishna Prasad near Kalaniketan showroom in Nampally and informed him that they had made a deal for Rs 10 crore with another group.
In a separate but related development, the high court on Tuesday dismissed the bail plea of D Prabhakar Rao, one of the arrested district judges in the cash-for-bail scam case.