Form special wing to probe Agrigold: Hyderabad High Court

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has suggested that the AP and TS governments constitute special wings to help investigating agencies get a comprehensive picture of the offences allegedly committed by Akshaya Gold and AgriGold and trace the money deposited by customers with these companies.

A division bench comprising V. Ramasubramanian and Justice S.V. Bhatt said the special wings could be notified under CrPC Section 2 (S).

The bench made the suggestion while dismissing a batch of petitions filed by promoters and directors of Akshaya Gold who stated that it was unconstitutional of the police to allow multiple FIRs and conduct an investigation into each of them in relation to the same set of facts.

The petitioners urged the court to direct the police to tag all subsequently registered FIRs to the first FIR and to set aside all the prisoner transit warrants issued against them.

After perusing the judgments of the Supreme Court on the validity of multiple FIRs, the bench said that out of the 21 cases, five related to non-repayment of deposits in each of which innumerable complaints were lodged by depositors and the Supreme Court did not choose to interfere.

The bench noted that the number of depositors to whom AgriGold and Akshaya Gold were due was 32 lakh, and that these companies had branches in several places. The bench said that the depositors had independent causes of action.

The bench made it clear that no court can issue a mandamus directing the station house officers of all police stations not to register any further FIR, as this would be tantamount to a restriction upon the victims from taking recourse to lawful remedies.