HC plans to hand over case to CBI or ED

Hyderabad: The High Court in Hyderabad is contemplating handing over investigation of serious irregularities in the spending of the funds of the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) to either to CBI, ED or SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office).

The division bench comprising of Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice T Rajani indicated this after perusing the report of Committee of Administrators comprising of former judge of the Supreme Court Justice Anil Ramesh Dave and Justice Seetapathi, a former judge of the Hyderabad High Court.

The bench found in the report fresh details of irregularities in the spending of the funds of HCA by various managements. As is known, the High Court had earlier appointed the Committee of Administrators while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by M Govind Reddy.

The Committee appointed by the High Court was also given the task of ensuring that the HCA followed Justice Lodha Committee recommendations apart from looking into allegations of serious irregularities in the spending of funds of HCA.

The Committee undertook forensic audit tests on some high value transactions made by the previous managements of the HCA and the audit brought out huge irregularities in all the areas where audit was conducted.

The bench perused samples of such forensic audit reports and then commented that this may require serious investigation by either CBI, ED or SFIO. The bench asked all the parties to file their objections to the report and adjourned the matter to two weeks.