Court orders cases on Agri Gold brass to stay

The Hyderabad High Court on Monday refused to quash the criminal cases registered against the chairman and founder-directors of the Agri Gold Group for duping depositors.

Justice A. Shankar Narayana was hearing a batch of petitions filed by company founder A. Seetha Rama Rao and founder directors A. Uday Bhaskar, A.V. Subrahmanyam and K.V.S. Sai.

The petitioners contended that the police cannot hold them responsible for the fraud committed by the company’s agents. They said they cannot be booked for an offence that took place three years after their resignation.

They contended that IPC Section 420 cannot be invoked against them as the non-payment of deposits was not intentional and was caused by a financial crunch. Mr Posani Venkateswarlu, AP public prosecutor, said the petitioners had initially floated three companies and collected deposits from people by promising them huge returns. After collecting the deposits they floated 150 shell companies where they diverted the money to those shell companies with an intention to cheat the depositors.

He said that though they were resigned from the Board before the date of surfacing the fraud , but they had role in starting the shell companies hence they are liable to be prosecuted.

He argued that the role of the petitioners was within realm of cheating as they were made a promise of huge returns with an intention to cheat the people.