Hyderabad High Court slams probe into AgriGold scam

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Friday criticised officials investigating the Agri Gold Group of Companies scam for their delay in arresting the accused. A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice S.V. Bhatt was hearing a petition by the Telangana AgriGold Customers and Agents Welfare Association, represented by its president A. Ramesh Babu. The petitioners were seeking a probe either by the CBI or the Enforcement Directorate into the scam.

When the AP CID authorities, who are investigating the case, told the court that they had seized Rs 6 lakh from the company, the bench expressed its anger. The company collected Rs 10,000 crore as  deposits, where has the rest of the money gone, the bench asked.  “It is a result of the dilly dallying by the probing agency, the case was registered about a year ago, but you are making arrests now,” the bench said. The bench said that when the court had asked about the arrests of the accused, the investigation officer has misled the court by deposing that custodial interrogation of the accused was not required.

The bench also observed that it appeared that the investigation officer had colluded with the accused and allowed them to divert funds. If the arrest had been made immediately after registration of the case, most of the money could have been seized, it said. The bench made it clear that if it noticed any further lethargy, the investigation officer would be sent behind bars. The bench told Mr Krishna Prakash, counsel appearing for AP, to inform the public prosecutors of the case in trial court that the High Court was monitoring the investigation.

Mr Ravi Prasad, counsel for the three-member committee which was constituted to oversee the auction of the properties, told the court that no bidders had come forward to participate in the auction and they were reconsidering the value of the properties as the company overvalued them. The Bench directed the management of AgriGold to deposit Rs 25 lakh to meet the maintenance and other expenditure of the three-member committee by next Friday. When counsel appearing for the company agreed to deposit the money, the Bench cautioned that if it failed to deposit the money they would have to face serious consequences. Asking Mr Ravi Prasad to assure builders that there would not be any problem if they purchased the properties in the auction conducted by the High Court, the bench adjourned the case to February 26.

JNU echo at HC, lawyers arrested:

Security personnel at the Hyderabad High Court on Friday averted a scuffle between two groups of who were protesting the JNU and Patiala House court incidents at Delhi by taking a bunch of advocates into preventive custody. It started with a statement issued by Mr V. Raghunath, vice-president of the Telangana Advocates Association, on Thursday,  in which he had condemned the lawyers of the Patiala House courts for resorting to violence assaulting Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the JNU Student Union, students and journalists.

He said that lawyers should respect the right to dissent. He appealed to lawyers to gather near Bar Council office at 1.30 pm on Friday to protest the incidents at the Patiala House courts. As many as 100 advocates opposing the statement of Mr Raghunath and his appeal for a protest gathered near the building. Police noticed Mr Raghunath and two other lawyers approaching the Bar Council building, and took them into custody before they could reach the building.  

When the advocates group which was opposing the protest programme raised slogans condemning “anti-national” activities, the police took five of them into preventive custody. Later, the leaders of Telangana and AP High Court Advocates' Associations said they had not authorised anyone to make statements on the JNU incident, and urged calm.