Madras High Court granted conditional bail to Tamil Nadu mining baron Sekhar Reddy.
Tamil Nadu's mining baron Sekhar Reddy, who was arrested in December, has got conditional bail from the Madras High Court. Two of his associates, Premkumar and Srinivasulu, have also been released on bail.
Besides furnishing sureties, as part of the conditional bail, the trio has to be in Delhi and sign at the Enforcement Directorate or ED office at 10:30 am daily till further orders.
Mr Reddy was arrested during the demonetization drive after Rs 142 crore in cash and 127 kg gold were recovered from his properties. This included Rs 34 crore worth of new 2,000 rupee notes.
Believed to be well connected politically, Income Tax authorities raided the then Chief Secretary Rama Mohana Rao based on evidence they collected from Mr Reddy.
Recently Income Tax officials wrote to the Tamil Nadu government that several ministers and bureaucrats had received around Rs 400 crore from Sekhar Reddy between 2015 and 2016 and asked the state government to initiate a probe. They stumbled upon the information on the basis of entries in Mr Reddy's diaries that were seized by them. The state government is, however, yet to act on it.
Though the Madras High Court had granted bail to Mr Reddy in March, the Enforcement Directorate had arrested him just a few days later for alleged money laundering. The ED also attached 34 crore rupees.
Mr Reddy had then argued that no bank official was arrested even 87 days after his arrest and claimed cash recovered from him was clean money.