High Court orders sale of AgriGold assets

Hyderabad: The High Court at Hyderabad on Friday ordered sale of assets belonging to scam-tainted AgriGold company through district committees comprising of district collector, district registrar and Secretary of District Legal Services Authority. A CID district level officer will have to assist this committee in conducting the sale, it directed.

The division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice S V Bhatt gave these directions while hearing the PIL petition filed by the depositors association seeking a CBI probe into the scam and return of depositors’ monies. The bench also directed that the first sale of five identified properties will be conducted in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.

Notification of sale must be issued within two weeks and a brief notice in two Telugu dailies while detailed one must be uploaded in the website, the bench directed. It also wanted wide publicity to be given in the form of leaflets and notices affixed in local government offices and also through tom tom.

Senior counsel L Ravichander, appearing on behalf of AgriGold company, informed the bench that two of the 10 properties proposed for sale by CID have been mortgaged with the Andhra Bank while one property has been sold before attaching of assets in 2015. He also contended that the valuations given by the CID for the 10 properties are lower and submitted the valuations as per the company.

Andhra Pradesh Advocate General Dammalapati Srinivas informed the bench that the asset being claimed as sold has not been registered and only an agreement seems to have been made for sale in 2008. The bench directed the senior counsel to produce the documents, if any, regarding that property in the next hearing. The AG also submitted a report on the forensic audit done by the CID in a sealed cover to the bench.