CBI seeks warrant to issue Interpol notice against Hospet MLA

The CBI moved the special court here for the warrant Monday,shortly after the MLA was denied anticipatory bail. The court said Anand Singh,one of the richest members of the Karnataka Assembly,attempted to evade the law by not submitting himself to questioning by the CBI. It said the MLA would have submitted himself to questioning if he was innocent and his failure to turn up for questioning suggested complicity.

Anand Singh had sought anticipatory bail,saying he was undergoing medical treatment in Singapore and that the CBI had originally treated him as a witness in an illegal mining case but was now looking at him as a suspect.

The court said the CBI had stated that the MLA was being viewed as a suspect in the light of new evidence regarding involvement of his two companies in extraction,transport and export of iron ore from Bellary during 2009-10.

The agency claimed Anand Singh was faking illness to avoid questioning. It said the MLA left the country after receiving information about a summons for his presence in the CBI office.

The CBI is probing the role of his two companies in stealing several lakh tonnes of iron ore from the Bellary region for export through the Belekeri port in Karnataka.

Shiva Kumar,manager of one of the companies,has already been arrested.

Anand Singh (47) had declared a wealth of Rs 104.53 crore before the Karnataka Assembly polls earlier this year. He had declared a wealth of Rs 95.90 crore when he became a BJP MLA in 2008. He was considered an integral part of a mining mafia run by former BJP minister G Janardhan Reddy,who was arrested by the CBI in September 2011.

In the case of export of illegal iron ore from Belekeri,the agency has already arrested three independent MLAs — B Nagendra and T H Suresh Babu,both formerly of the BJP,and Satish Sail,formerly of the Congress.