There is no hope for any early end to the discomfort of the millionaire mining baron and former minister of Karnataka Gali Janardhan Reddy as the hearing of his bail petition has been postponed by the court to Thursday.
Both the bail petition as well as the Central Bureau of Investigation's application for his custody came up before the special CBI court on Wednesday. A battery of lawyers of Janardhan Reddy, some of whom were from Bangalore, opposed CBI's application for his custody saying the remand report of the CBI was incomplete.
On Janardhan Reddy's bail petition, the court directed the CBI to file its counter by Thursday.
Meanwhile, Janardhan Reddy and his Obulapuram Mining Company managing director Srinivas Reddy were spending their third day in Chanchalguda Jail of Hyderabad like any other ordinary under trial prisoner.
After refusing to take the prison cooked food on day one, comprising of rice, dal and vegetables, the duo has started to eat, the jail sources said.
After spending the first night in the "reception hall", where the new entrants of the prison were kept, Gali and his MD have been to shifted to the another cell. While Gali has been given the prisoner number 697, Srinivas Reddy has got the tag of 696.
Jail sources said that they were being treated like any other under trial prisoner. Janardhan Reddy had to stand in the queue along with others to get his food and then had to wash his plate.
As per the prison rules each under trial prisoner is given 600 gram of rice, 100 grams of dal and 250 grams of vegetable curry and the same applied to the new VIP inmates. They have been provided one bed-sheet to spread on the floor and one blanket to cover themselves.
It was obvious that for Gali Janardhan Reddy and his brother in law, habituated to luxurious life in palatial bungalows with an army of servants to take care of them, the world has now turned topsy-turvy.
Sources said that for Gali's team of lawyers the top priority was to secure a bail for them at the earliest. "Second option is to get them the status of special class prisoners from the court", one of the lawyers of his team said.
B Ramalinga Raju, the erstwhile founder and chairman of Satyam Computers is also in the same Chanchalguda Jail but he enjoys the status of special prisoner and stays in a separate room and gets separate food with the permission of the court.
There is no scope for Gali Janardhan Reddy to seek an admission into a hospital on the health grounds because the jail doctor after examining both the Reddys found them to be fit.
