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High Court faults Deloitte for delay in checking of documents
The High Court at Hyderabad expressed unhappiness at accounting firm Deloitte for delaying the examination of documents relating to AgriGold in the custody of the AP CID as part of due diligence exercise for takeover of the scam-tainted company by Essel-Zee Group’s Subhash Chandra Foundation.
Hyderabad: The High Court at Hyderabad expressed unhappiness at accounting firm Deloitte for delaying the examination of documents relating to AgriGold in the custody of the AP CID as part of due diligence exercise for takeover of the scam-tainted company by Essel-Zee Group’s Subhash Chandra Foundation. It also found fault with the CID for not acting as per the earlier directions of the court in this regard and passed a specific direction to Deloitte to begin the exercise from October 12 on a daily basis.
The division bench comprising Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice S V Bhatt gave these directions on Tuesday while hearing the Public Interest Litigation petition filed by the depositors and agents seeking a CBI probe into the scam. Deloitte accounting firm had filed an intervention application in the case on behalf of Subhash Chandra Foundation expressing its interest in taking over the AgriGold company on an as is where is basis.
The court had allowed the intervention application after imposing a condition of depositing Rs 10 crore money to begin the due diligence exercise. During the last hearing on September 22, the court had directed the firm and the CID to see that the examination of documents took place on a daily basis from October 3 in order to avoid unnecessary delays.
On Tuesday, the court was informed by the counsel for the intervenor that so far they could only correspond with the agencies concerned and actual examination of documents work was not yet started. He cited the letter by AP CID asking for specific list of documents so that they can be shared with them. The bench expressed dissatisfaction at the loss of precious time due to non-implementation of its earlier order. It commented that red-tapism is usually expected in government organisations but here the firm was also exhibiting the same.
The bench also found fault with the CID for raising queries when the order of the court was clear about making available all documents related to AgriGold except those for criminal prosecution to the Intervenor. The court directed the intervenor to constitute three teams and send simultaneously to the CID headquarters, to the corporate office of AgriGold and to Eluru jail for interaction with the directors on October 12 at 10 am and begin the exercise.
This exercise must continue on a day-to-day basis and all agencies must extend cooperation, the bench directed. It also directed the AP CID to collate the lists of properties already submitted by the petitioner and to be submitted by the AgriGold company for sale in next phase of e-auction and submit during the next hearing on October 24.
