Jagan assets case: Hetero defends investment in firms

HYDERABAD: Hetero Pharmacy, which has been arraigned in one of the eleven chargesheets filed by the CBI in the assets case against YSR Congress leader Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, on Friday, told the trial court that the investigating agency should either completely discard the statement of former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy's close follower Suryanarayana Reddy alias Sureedu or use it to nail all those named by him.
The company's counsel V Pattabhi made this submission to principal special judge N Balayogi of the CBI court that was hearing the discharge petition filed by the pharma company here on Friday.
In his statement, Sureedu spoke about YSR's proximity to Congress Rajya Sabha member K V P Ramachandra Rao and on how several industrialists, bigwigs and beneficiaries used to meet KVP first before meeting YSR.
The statement also spoke of the promoters of Hetero meeting YSR frequently. Based on this, the CBI chargesheet has alleged a quid pro quo arrangement between YSR, Jagan and Hetero. While urging the court to exonerate Hetero in the case, Pattabhi told the court that the CBI had selectively used Sureedu's statement against Hetero but ignored all the other names that figured in his statement.
"The CBI chose not to give credence to Sureedu's statement in respect of others but believe it only in respect of HeteroIf you want to scrap this statement as false, then better scrap it completely," he said.
The counsel also questioned the wisdom of the investigating agency in seeking to know the commercial prudence of their investments in Jagan firms. "This is not the CBI's businessWe believed in the brand image of Jagathi Publications (publishers of Sakshi Telugu daily). The charge of quid pro quo is so meaningless that the very same CBI which spoke of us deriving an illegal gain of Rs 8 crore from the land allotted to us in Jadcherla SEZ concluded that we made an investment of Rs 19 crore in Jagan's firms in lieu of the benefits we derived from the YSR regime. Which prudent man would invest Rs 19 crore as quid pro quo when the total benefit he derived is not more than Rs 8 crore", Pattabhi asked.
Pattabhi said Hetero did not buy the land but it was given on lease. "The CBI forgot to differentiate between land rate and lease rent. Moreover, as much as Rs 15 crore of our total Rs 19 crore investment was put in Janani Infra (also a Jagan firm) which is a real estate firm where investments will definitely yield results in the long run. As far as the Rs 4 crore investment in Sakshi is concerned, we made it because we liked the brand. The CBI cannot do the job of the Registrar of Companies (RoC) and question the commercial viability of this investment It is like questioning a person as to why he was buying branded shirts at higher prices when unbranded ones were available at cheaper prices," he said.
With this, hearing in the discharge petition filed by Hetero has been completed. The judge posted the case to October 27when the discharge petition of Aurobindo Pharma company is to be heard.