Hearing on the appeal filed by NAFED bigwigs against recovery notices has been deferred to March 16.
Many respondents in the Nafed recovery case had appealed the court of Additional Secretary against the order of the Central Registrar.
Central Registrar had ordered them to deposit the money. Homi Rajvansh who topped the list was asked to deposit Rs 110 crore followed by the wife and son of late Chairman Ajit Singh depositing about Rs 64 crore each.
The matter is pending in the court of Additional Secretary who inadvertently kept February 20 as the day of hearing that happened to be a holiday.
The Ministry sources say the next date of hearing is March 16.They had made it clear to the management of NAFED that it could go ahead with the procedure of recovery as the accused had failed to get a stay on its (Central Registrar’s) order.
The current Managing Director Rajeev Gupta is tight-lipped and efforts to contact him have failed.
Readers may recall that NAFED suffered a huge loss when unscrupulous business deals were struck and Nafed extended guarantee without being financially prudent.
The after-shock had been such that Nafed , a pride of agricultural cooperatives in the country, is struggling for its very survival.
The play of egos between cooperative leaders and mandarins of the agricultural ministry has compounded the matter with Nafed’s chance of revival receding further.