A court, on Wednesday, conceded the request of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the multi-crore default in repayment of loans by Deccan Chronicle following a complaint by Canara Bank.
The CBI placed the request after submitting to the court documents running into nearly 25,000 pages which were seized during its search operations in half-a-dozen premises belonging to the newspaper publishing house, its directors and auditors on Monday-Tuesday.
The investigating agency also wanted custody of the documents for the purpose of probe which the court allowed. The search warrants issued to conduct raids on the press of Deccan Chronicle at Secunderabad, the houses of Chairman T. Venkatram Reddy and Vice-Chairman T. Vinayak Ravi Reddy and other directors were returned to the court on the occasion. The seized documents were brought to the court of the 14 Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at Nampally in six corrugated boxes.
Of them, nearly 13,000 pages were recovered from a chartered accountant’s firm alone. They contained vital information on how the Deccan Chronicle defrauded the bank and evaded payment of income-tax, sources said.
