Raids on media baron's assets rock AP assembly

The Andhra Pradesh assembly was adjourned for the day on Thursday amidst uproar created by the Opposition parties over the searches conducted on Wednesday by the Criminal Investigation Department on Margadarsi Financiers owned by media baron Ramoji Rao. 

Trouble arose as soon as the assembly sitting commenced at 0830 hours. Speaker K R Suresh Reddy disallowed the adjournment notices given by five opposition parties --Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Protesting against this, the Opposition members got on their feet and raised slogans against the Congress government for trying to 'muzzling the freedom of the press' by conducting searches on Margadarsi Financiers, a concern of Margadarsi Chit Fund Group that also owns Eenadu Telugu daily and Eenadu television network. 

The agitated members did not respond to the repeated pleas of the Speaker to cooperate for smooth running of the House. Demanding that the issue should be taken up, they stalled the proceedings, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House for 15 minutes.

The Speaker held a meeting with the floor leaders of all parties but, when the House reassembled, the Opposition members again disrupted the proceedings, demanding that the issue be taken up. As they continued to raise slogans, the Speaker abruptly adjourned the House for the day.

It may be recalled that special teams of the CID conducted simultaneous searches on three premises of Margadarsi Financiers, including its head office and two branches in the city on Wednesday. They seized a huge volume of documents, hard discs and ledgers containing details of accounts and depositors.

The CID action came following a petition filed by the state government alleging that Margadarsi was not cooperating in furnishing information to the Rangachari Committee that was constituted to study irregularities in the collection of deposits by the company.

The state government claimed that the firm was not registered with the Reserve Bank of India as a non-banking finance company and that it was raising hundreds of crores of rupees by way of deposits in the name of a Hindu Undivided Family, thereby violating section 45 (S) of the RBI Act.