Hyderabad: The Telangana high court on Friday paved the way for distribution of Rs 250 crore to nearly 6 lakh AP-based small depositors. Most of the victims are daily wage earners who saved their hard earnings over a period of time with the scam-hit AgriGold company and were later duped.AP has already announced Rs 250 crore for the purpose. More than 32 lakh depositors were duped by the company which had collected deposits of Rs 7,000 crore. The high court is in the process of auctioning the assets of the company for the purpose of repaying the money to depositors. In the meantime, AP has come forward to first pay back the small depositors from the state who invested less than Rs 10,000 each.The division bench comprising Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice P Keshava Rao, that was hearing a public interest litigation plea seeking refund of money to the poor and also a CBI probe into the matter, entrusted the matter to district legal services authorities in AP districts and also to the AP CID to identify the eligible depositors and also to disburse the money by March 27.AP advocate general Dammalapati Srinivas placed before the court a copy of GO MS No 31 issued by the AP government, whereby Rs 250 crore has been sanctioned as an “immediate mitigating measure to provide solace to the AgriGold depositors of Andhra Pradesh who deposited Rs 10,000 and below”. This is subject to reimbursement of the same from the proceeds fetched through sale of AgriGold properties through auctions conducted by the court. He submitted that the government is ready to disburse the amounts if the court permits. He informed that there were 7.90 lakh depositors in AP who had invested Rs 10,000 or less and that they have been identified by the CID and their claims were being cross-verified.N S Arjun Kumar, the counsel for Telangana AgriGold depositors, requested the court to club the amount of Rs 250 crore with the sale proceeds deposited in the account of the court and distribute the amount to depositors of various states besides AP so that the other depositors also would get some relief. He also sought a direction from the court to the Telangana government to come up with a similar proposal for providing relief to depositors in Telangana state.The bench, while noting that the proposal of AP government is an interim solace to depositors of the state, felt that “it will not be possible for this court to pass a judicial order to distribute the monies to depositors of all states”. It, however, stated that the question of reimbursement of the Rs 250 crore from the auction sale proceeds can be a subject matter of discussion at a later date. It ruled out directing the Telangana government to come up with a similar proposal.Meanwhile, the bench was informed by senior counsel Narender Reddy, representing the consortium of banks, that no bids were received by the banks for the auction of Haailand resort , a Vijayawada-based asset of AgriGold company. The court earlier fixed Rs 600 crore as upset price but there were no takers for the property. The bench noted that AgriGold company and its sister concern Arka Leisures had claimed that the property is valued around Rs 1,800 crore and questioned their counsels as to why they could not get any buyer for even Rs 600 crore. The bench permitted the banks to make another attempt at auctioning the property, but with a reduced upset price of Rs 500 crore. The case has been posted to next Friday.

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