Court adjourns bail pleas of Shekar Reddy, four others to Dec 27 in case of alleged seizure of 127 kg gold by I-T dept

A CBI court on Friday adjourned till December 27 the hearing on the bail pleas of mining baron Shekar Reddy and his associate Srinivasalu in connection with the case of alleged seizure of 127 kg gold and over Rs 170 crore in cash from their premises by the Income Tax department.

They were arrested on December 21 and CBI had stated in its FIR that the case against them was that the two had exchanged Rs 34 crore as new currency out of the total seized amount. CBI had arrested Premkumar, auditor of Reddy and quarry contractors Ratnam and Ramachandran on Thursday.

The five had changed the currency within 24 days from the date the demonetisation was announced (November 8), the FIR stated. All the five are under judicial custody.

Special Judge for CBI cases Vijayalakshmi adjourned the bail pleas of the five and CBI's application seeking their custody to December 27. The five have been charged under IPC sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) and under 13(1) and (2) of Prevention of Corruption Act. The judge also directed the prison authorities to consider the pleas by the five for first class facility in the jail in accordance with the law.