Hyderabad, Nov. 25: The Andhra Pradesh government has stopped operations at all four iron-ore mines owned in the state by Karnataka minister Janardhan Reddy following charges of illegal mining, royalty dodge and other irregularities.

Janardhan is one of the three Reddy brothers who recently tried to oust Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa and are known to be close to Jaganmohan Reddy, son of the late YSR and rival to Andhra chief minister K. Rosaiah.

This afternoon, the Andhra government ordered all six mining companies in the Obulapuram region — two of them owned by others who had complained of encroachment by Janardhan’s companies — to stop mining and transport of ore till all issues were sorted out.

One of the charges against Janardhan’s companies is that they removed the Andhra-Karnataka border posts near their mines so they could transport ore from one state to another without paying cess.

The government decided to act after a committee set up by the Supreme Court wrote to it last week to restore the border demarcations, chief secretary P. Ramakantha Reddy said.

Earlier, the Rosaiah go- vernment had appointed its own three-member committee of forest officials to probe the Obulapuram scandal, and also written to the CBI to probe the irregularities.

Cutting the Reddy brothers to size would benefit Rosaiah politically.

The brothers are so close to Jagan that one of their demands during the Karnataka crisis was for state patronage to a newspaper owned by YSR’s son.

Rosaiah has the high command’s support in trying to clip Jagan’s wings and is keen to woo all Congress leaders from the non-YSR camp.

Janardhan had got the lease for one mine, the Obulapuram Mining Corporation, during the tenure of YSR and then allegedly used muscle power to get three other mining promoters to sell their lease to him.

The charges against his companies include that of illegally blowing up a hillock, mining beyond his leased area, and not paying royalties. Rosaiah said in Visakhapatnam that his government had gathered evidence of irregularities in the Obulapuram mines.