Essel group to hold talks in Guntur on Agri Gold takeover

HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court on Friday directed the  Subhash Chandra Foundation of the Essel Group and Zee TV to begin the process of consultation with the Additional Director General of Police (CID), Andhra Pradesh Government, at CID headquarters in Mangalagiri, Guntur district, between September 25 and 27, for taking over AgriGold. Further, the bench directed the Delloite accounting firm, which was representing the Foundation before the court, to frame modalities and have a schedule for examining the documents relating to AgriGold with the CID as part of due diligence exercise to take over the scam-hit company and suggested that the examination of documents must happen on a daily basis from October 3 in order to avoid unnecessary delays.

The bench of Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice S V Bhatt was passing these orders in the batch petitions filed by Telangana Agri Gold customers and agents welfare association and others seeking CBI probe into AgriGold scam and return of the depositors’ monies. On last occasion, the senior counsel appearing for the firm told the bench that the Foundation was interested in taking over the assets and liabilities of AgriGold company after conducting due-diligence.

He said that the Foundation was in a capacity and is willing to take over all the 175 odd companies of the Agri Gold group even by paying thousands of crores. Pursuant to the court direction, the counsels representing Agri Gold and the AP government submitted the list of depositors category-wise. In all, there are about 32 lakh depositors and an amount of Rs 6,380 crores deposits were made into the company. On Friday, senior counsel Sri Raghuram, appearing for Delloite, submitted that pursuant to the earlier direction of the court the foundation has deposited Rs 10 crore to the account of Registrar Judicial of the High Court in order to begin the exercise of taking over the scam-hit Agri Gold group of companies after conducting due-diligence.

The bench then directed the CID to allow the representatives of the firm to examine the documents in its custody as part of due-diligence exercise. It also directed the Inspector General of Prisons of AP to facilitate meetings of the jailed company directors and officials with the team of Delloite firm as part of the said exercise as and when required. 

The bench, however, rejected the plea of Sri Raghuram to allow them to publish notices seeking objections on the properties of Agri Gold it intended to take over. 
The bench directed the petitioner, the Agri Gold company and the CID to come up with an agreed list of properties for sale in the next phase and also to submit separately the market values of these properties so that the bench would decide the upset price and bid reserve price for them. The bench posted the matter to October 10.