Is Andhra Pradesh government headed by N Chandrababu Naidu trying to shield Agri Gold bosses? This was the doubt expressed by the Hyderabad High Court on Thursday.
Taking serious note of the slow progress of investigation in the Agri Gold scam, the High Court sought to know why the Andhra police were hesitating to arrest the company’s chairman and its directors who had duped lakhs of depositors who had invested more than Rs 4,000 crore.
The government counsel tried to clarify that the police had not arrested the Agri Gold bosses because they were cooperating in the investigation.
The High Court directed that the government auction the sale of assets owned by Agri Gold and pay back the deposits to the depositors.
The committee constituted by the AP Government informed the court that the assets of Agrigold would be auctioned from February 1.
The responsibility of auctioning the assets was entrusted to MSTC, Sriram Automal and E-Procurement Technology.
The committee members said six assets would be auctioned in the first phase and each company would be given responsibility of selling two assets, the committee members said.
Then, the court ordered the panel to open a website and upload all the details of Agrigold assets and tenders.
The management of Agrigold told the court that it expected Rs 3500 crore in the first phase auction.
