In a major blow to the Andhra media baron Mr Ch. Ramoji Rao, a Visakhapatnam court on Tuesday dismissed three interim petitions filed by him in the cheating case relating to the land taken by him on lease for running his Eenadu daily from one Mr Aditya Varma.

It might be recalled that Ramoji has been facing a cheating case filed the land owner Mr Varma who alleged that Ramoji has surrendered to the Government a part of the leased land without his knowledge for road widening and got the compensatory land given by the Government registered in his own name.

While the hearing on the cheating case was going on, Ramoji submitted three interim petitions with relation to the hearing of the main case. In one petition, he sought permission of the court to submit objections on the written explanation given by land owner Varma. In the second petition, Ramoji said that there are some misrepresented facts over the compensatory land allotted to him by the government and sought permission to present the facts. In the third petition, he said that the documents of the lease agreement were pledged to the Saifabad branch of Union Bank of India in Hyderabad and asked the court to adjourn hearing on the main petitions of Varma till he gets those documents from the bank.

After arguments from both sides, Magistrate VV. Sheshubabu of the 9th additional district court of Visakhapatnam dismissed the three petitions saying they were not maintainable. The court posted the case to August 8 for further hearing.