‘Flaws in CBI charges’
D. A. Somayajulu, YSR Congress adviser and party’s Central Governing Council member, criticised the CBI for filing a frivolous supplementary chargesheet as it relied on speculative market value of the Sakshi group.
Addressing the media on Wednesday, he said the first chargesheet spoke of a Chennai-based audit firm, Jagadish & Company, having valued the Sakshi media house at Rs 146 crore in 2006, a value that rose to Rs 3,400 crore in 2008. This yawning difference is being questioned in the supplementary chargesheet.
“In the first place, Sakshi came into being only in 2008 and the first report of the Chennai-based firm cannot be a valuation report but only a project report. The second figure, which the CBI must have picked up from a report given by a foreign company in 2008, was meant for internal circulation and clearly mentions that the report cannot be used as a basis for investment in the company (Sakshi),” Mr Somayajulu said.
Questioning the difference in value could only be pursued when an affected party approaches the court, which was not so here, and taking the speculative market value into consideration was not a proper premise on the part of the CBI as there would be fluctuations, evident from the Lanco Power unit. Its market value was Rs 21,000 crore at the beginning, at the time of the setting up of the power plant, and it fell drastically after the unit went into steam, he added.
Referring to the CBI’s charge that land allotment to Hetero Drugs and Aurobindo Pharma had been done in tune with the government’s industrial policy which the Chandrababu Naidu Cabinet adopted, Mr Somayajulu said that giving land to the two companies in the backward areas of Mahbubnagar district could not be faulted when it was prime land in the heart of the city being made available at throwaway prices.
“The pharma companies have purchased land 100 km away from the city at Jadcherla at Rs 7 lakh per acre in a backward region, where there is no social, industrial and economic infrastructure. The actual price at that time would have been around Rs 1 lakh per acre and the government has indeed made a profit out of the deal,” he said. The CBI's contention that the value must have been around Rs 15 lakh, a figure that must have been given by a junior level officer, has no legal standing, he said.
“The previous TD government had given land to industrialists in the heart of the city at varied prices of Rs 50,000, Rs 2 lakh and Rs 27 lakh per acre though the market value was many times higher. Concessions to industrialists had been a government policy and many industrial units like Emaar, IMG and Infosys, were recipients of these concessions during th TD’s term in office, Mr Somayajulu said.
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