P SURESH CHANDRA CHAKARAVARTHY Vs. DISTRICT COLLECTOR CHITTOOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellants 1 and 2 are respondents 15 and 19 in Crl.M.P.No.1 of 2001 in the lower Court. THE said petition was filed by the competent authority under Section 4(3) of the Andhra Pradesh Protection of Depositors of Financial Establishments Act 1999 (in short, the Act), for making ad-interim order of attachment absolute. Ex.A1 is G.O.Ms.No.30 of Home (General-B) Department of Government of Andhra Pradesh dated 02.02.2001, by which several properties were initially attached under Section 3 of the Act. By following he prescribed procedure, the lower Court issued notices to all the concerned who have semblance of any interest in the properties attached under Section 3 of the Act. After receiving the said notices, the appellants/respondents 15 and 19 filed objections in the lower Court. THE respondents 15 and 19 are brothers. It is their contention that they have purchased vacant site of 325.0342 square yards in S.No.196 of Kammapalle, under five registered sale deeds between 30.10.1998 and 12.08.1999 for total sum of Rs.2.78 lakhs and that subsequently, they levelled the land spending enormous amounts and constructed two storied building spending about Rs.16,00,000/- and have rented out ground floor of the building to BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) and are living in the first floor. It is their contention that the vacant site purchased by them did not belong to commercial finance syndicate or its sister concerns nor was it purchased from out of the deposits received by the financial institutions and that they have nothing to do with the said financial establishments and that therefore, the vacant site is not liable to be attached under the Act and that the financial institutions have got adequate assets to satisfy its depositors. After making appropriate enquiry in which PW1 was examined and Exs.A1 to A7 were marked on behalf of the competent authority; and RWs 1 and 2 were examined and Exs.B1 to B3 were marked on behalf of all the respondents, the lower Court passed the impugned order making the interim attachment covered by Ex.A1 absolute.

(2.) IN this appeal, it is contended by the appellants counsel that the lower Court did not conduct enquiry as a Civil Court in accordance with the procedure under the Code of Civil Procedure and that the lower Court should have seen that the properties of the appellants are not liable for attachment under Section 3 of the Act and at best, they can be proceeded with under Section 8 of the Act in case, the properties held by the financial establishment and its partners, managers and members are not sufficient to satisfy repayment of deposits collected from the depositors.

(3.) DURING enquiry in the lower Court, none of the respondents 15 and 19 examined themselves as witnesses nor filed any documents in support of their case.In the statement of objections filed by them in the lower Court, they did not give even dates of their five sale deeds nor gave the persons from whom they purchased those properties under those undisclosed sale deeds.They did not file either original sale deeds in their favour nor registration extracts thereof.In the absence of adducing any evidence in support of their bald objections and in the absence of substantiating their objections before the lower Court during enquiry, now the appellants cannot be heard to say that the lower Court failed to consider their interest in the properties.