A local rent control court on Wednesday ordered media baron and Eenadu Group chairman, Ch. Ramoji Rao, to vacate within three months the leased premises in Seethamm-adhara, where his publication office is located, and hand over possession to the landlord. The court also directed Mr Ramoji Rao to bear the cost of litigation. Rent control court judge G. Ganga Raju held that the alleged rent deposits claimed by Mr Ramoji Rao were not as per prescribed procedure, and as such he defaulted in payments. The court also refused to accept Mr Ramoji Rao’s claim that his counsel’s clerk had misappropriated money meant for rent.
The court was dealing with a case filed by one M.A.E.K.K. Varma seeking Mr Ramoji Rao’s eviction from his premises. According to Mr Varma’s counsel V.V. Ravi Prasad, he had leased 2.78 acre to the media baron for 33 years in 1974. After the lease expired in March 2007, Mr Varma filed a petition before the rent control court for Mr Ramoji Rao’s eviction. He filed another application in 2011 under Section 11, seeking eviction on the specific ground of non-payment of even the admitted rent of `3,000 per month since the expiry of the lease.
Mr Ramoji Rao contended that he has deposited money for the rent with the court regularly. But Mr Varma’s counsel contended that Mr Ramoji Rao had made fraudulent deposits in court and had also lied to the court that his counsel’s clerk had misappropriated the amount, as the police had closed his complaint as a false complaint. Magistrate and police investigations also found that Mr Ramoji Rao had never sent cheques through his employee.