Essel group gets access to Agrigold documents for due diligence after Hyd HC permission

The Hyderabad High Court on Friday directed the state governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, to permit the Dr Subash Chandra Foundation of the Essel Group to access documents related to the Agri Gold group.

This came after the foundation expressed  interest in taking over the tainted Agri Gold group of companies, and deposited Rs 10 crore to conduct due diligence.

Earlier this month,  Deloitte filed an additional affidavit before a division bench, which was dealing with a batch of petitions filed by the Telangana Agri Gold Customers and Agents Welfare Association and others for a CBI probe into the scam, that has affected several lakh people.

The Times of India reported that the interested company also said that it would require four months time to complete due-diligence of assets and liabilities, and was willing to take over all the 175 odd companies of the Agri Gold group.

Earlier this month, the High Court also dismissed an anticipatory bail petition by the director and vice-chairman of the AgriGold group of companies, T Sunil Chowdary, pointing out that he also played a key role in the tainted company, and could not escape the law.

Around 3.2 million people in many states including Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, were duped by the AgriGold scam, which came to light in 2014.

The company owes Rs 6,380 crore to over 32 lakh depositors in nine states, with Andhra Pradesh leading the list with 19 lakh depositors.

The company lured several lakh customers on the promise that their investment would come back to them with higher returns. Several 'agents' were also sent out to convince people to invest in the group of companies.

The company allegedly took this money and invested heavily in real estate, before branching out to other areas as well, and finally duping the customers.