CBI raids, on Jagan Mohan Reddy the son of the former Chief Minister, unearthed documents of properties worth Rs.1000 Cr. Each of the witnesses present at the raids put down not less than 3,000 signatures as part of the scrutiny of documents, it was a tedious procedure followed by the CBI.

Some witnesses were enthusiastic, but most of them were worried about being dragged to courts even after their retirement.

The normal procedure at the CBI office is that, the third party employees were picked up by the CBI from government departments subject to their approvals from the respective heads. These employees must maintain confidentiality, only such people recommended by their departments were listed a fort night earlier to the raids.

The night before the raids, the list of officers entitled as witnesses were informed and they reported at 4.30 am on the following day informed a CBI source. The raids were started at 8.30 am and lasted till 2.30am the next day. Jagan’s manager was present on the premises when the raids were conducted at the 23 acre palatial bungalow at Bangalore.

Since huge volumes of documents related to properties, firms, partnership and family holdings were pulled out during the raids, each of the witness had to put down nearly 3,000 signatures at the end of the day. Some took 10-15 minutes for every document, reading carefully what they were signing on and were having second thoughts about doing so said a CBI source.

On August 18 teams of CBI conducted simultaneous raids on properties owned by Jagan in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Though no Liquid assets were identified, but huge piles of Documents were unearthed, which almost looked correct.

The raids followed the AP high court’s order to the local state government to allow the CBI to investigate the allegation in a writ petition that the Reddys’ fortune jumped from Rs 11 lakh in 2002 to Rs 42,000 Cr by 2009, when Y S R Reddy died in a chopper crash.