HCA approaches High Court, seeks A/Cs defreezing
Lower court had issued the orders within 10 days after Visakha Industries filed the executive petition
HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA), which will host some World Cup matches in its Uppal stadium, has approached the Telangana High Court seeking defreezing of the stadium and bank accounts which a lower court had attached.
Supreme Court former judge Justice Lavu Nageshwara Rao, the HCA administrator, filed a civil revision petition before the Telangana High Court challenging the orders issued by the Rangareddy District Court at LB Nagar in a commercial executive petition filed by Visaka Industries, owned by BJP leader G. Vivekanand.
On September 22, the Rangareddy court had ordered to attach all the properties and bank accounts of the HCA.
Visaka Industries said it had got favourable arbitral tribunal orders in 2016, which directed the HCA to pay Rs 25.92 crore along with interest at 18 per cent per annum and costs from the date of award till realisation, over violation of the development agreement at the time the Uppal stadium was built in 2004. As these orders had not been complied with, Visaka Industries approached the Rangareddy court.
Vangala Ramachandra Goud, counsel on record for the HCA and its administrator, said that the lower court orders were against those of the Supreme Court that appointed Justice Nageswara Rao (retd) as the administrator along with a blanket restraint order under Article 142 banning all the courts from passing order that interfered with his job of cleansing the HCA.
The freeze had rendered the administrator ineffective, Goud said and added that it amounted to interference with the functioning of the single-man committee appointed by the apex court. He also pointed out that the lower court had issued the orders within 10 days after Visakha Industries filed the executive petition.
The Visakha Industries petition was an attempt to pressurise the HCA ahead of the World Cup, Goud said.