Bengaluru: The Income Tax department officials visited the offices of mining baron and former Karnataka minister Janardhan Reddy on Monday, days after the extravagant wedding of his daughter grabbed headlines.
Reddy, a former BJP lawmaker, is on bail after languishing 40 months in jail for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore mining scam that rocked Karnataka in 2010-11.
Though Reddy was maintaining low profile after his release in January 2015 on conditional bail by the Supreme Court, an expensive marriage invitation sent out with a LCD screen playing a pre-wedding video raised eyebrows and brought him back into limelight.
Over 50,000 people attended the wedding of his daughter Brahmani at the Bangalore Palace.
Billed as one of the most expensive marriages in the sub-continent, the five-day grand event drew all-round flak at a time when lakhs were queueing up outside banks and ATMs for cash.
Ahead of the fat wedding, Reddy told reporters on November 10 at his home town, Ballari, that he would give marriage expenditure account to the income tax department in a month. However, he had declined to share its estimate with the local media.
"You (journalists) can also obtain information under the Right to Information Act and make an interesting report," Reddy said on the occasion.
Except for a local news channel, funded by Reddy, media was barred from covering the wedding, as it was a family event and also due to security concerns.
T. Narasimha Murthy, 52, a Bengaluru-based legal activist, alleged that Reddy was splurging a whopping Rs 500 crore on his daughter's wedding at a time when people were struggling daily to get their money from banks and post offices.
"Reddy had hired about 3,000 bouncers and security guards to prevent media and activists, like me, from barging into the venue and asking him on the vulgar display of his ill-gotten wealth he amassed through illegal mining," said Murthy.
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