Congress has always misused CBI: Hazare

Social activist Anna Hazare on Saturday said it was wrong to presume that the CBI acts of its own volition and alleged that Congress had always “misused” the central investigating agency.

Asked about the CBI raid on DMK leader M K Stalin’s residence immediately after the party withdrew its support to the UPA government,
Mr Hazare told reporters, “Everybody knows that the CBI is under government’s control. If it is brought under the Lokpal’s control, it would help in curbing corruption.”

Mr. Hazare alleged that Congress had always “misused” the agency, even though it has some good officers in its fold.

“It is not that all people with the CBI are bad. But they are subjected to pressure as they have their jobs to protect.

Congress has always misused it,” he alleged.

When asked to comment on the UPA allies leaving Congress, Mr. Hazare said the party was losing the sympathy of the people because of the corruption associated with it.

“Congress is taking wrong steps. People have lost their sympathy for the party as responsible ministers in the government too are involved in scams,” he added.

Referring to the support of Samajwadi Party (SP) to the Congress-led government, Mr. Hazare said, “Regional parties pose a threat to the country as they bring pressure (on the government).”

He said although he had parted ways with his erstwhile colleague Arvind Kejarwal, there was no conflict between them and he wished him well for their cause through political means.

Mr. Hazare said he had not instituted any core committee of his own after breaking away from IAC. “It is difficult to get selfless workers for a cause. I am at present associated with ’Janatantra Morcha’ along with former Army Chief V K Singh, which is a non-political organisation,” he added.

Later, addressing a gathering, the activist said he was confident that the Lokpal would be a reality. “We have seen part one of the Lokpal bill,” he added.

He also noted with satisfaction that the provision of a fine for civil servants, who delayed their work beyond the stipulated period under Citizens’ Charter.

“When the elections are declared, I would be once again be at the Ramlila maidan to press for the demand for Right to Reject as part of electoral reforms to keep anti-social elements out of Parliament and the state legislatures,” Mr. Hazare asserted.

BJP blames UPA policies for poor economic growth

Accusing the government of flip-flops, indecision and mis-governance, the BJP today said its policy paralysis and corruption have affected the country’s growth rate and left its economy in a mess.

Slamming the government for its “failure” to control price rise and inflation, it also demanded an “immediate” roll back of hike in all administrative prices of diesel, gas, petrol, rail and other services “as the common man is reeling under unprecedented economic burden.”

Targeting the government on the issue of corruption, it said, the VVIP helicopter scam and the Farm Loan Waiver scam are the latest additions in this government’s “unending list of corruption.”

“It is fascinating to note that Italy, which was to benefit from the helicopter deal, went after the bribe givers immediately when they got the wind of corruption, while India, the sufferer of this scam is not ready to trace the bribe takers. Mystery still shrouds over the mention of the recipients as ‘the family’,” the BJP Economic Resolution passed at its National Council meeting here said.

It said while the government has ordered a CBI probe, it is not ready to have it monitored by the court.

“It has neither registered FIR nor issued Letters Rogatory (LR). It is offering JPC knowing full well that it cannot investigate and come to conclusion. This fuels speculation that the government is more interested in ensuring a white wash to protect the bribe receivers rather than unearth the truth and punish the guilty,” it said.

It said the biggest failure of the UPA government is its inability to tame inflation and bring down the prices.

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, while seconding the Economic Resolution, said India will scrap FDI in multi-brand retail policy when BJP-led NDA comes to power.

“Unfortunately, inflation is not the result of any natural disaster but is purely a gift of this government. Bad food stock management and distribution anomalies triggered the inflationary pressure in the first place,” the resolution said.

When the country is required to stock only 30 million tonne of food grains in the godowns, the UPA has stocked a huge quantity of more than 70 million tonne of food grains thereby creating shortages in the market and fuelling prices, the opposition party said.

Drawing comparison of the economic situation of the country between now and the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the resolution maintained that the BJP-led government inherited a lowly growth rate of 4% in 1998, but due to its commitment to make India an economic superpower, it had put the economy on a fast growth trajectory.

“As a result of the visionary leadership of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India for the first time in decades witnessed 8.25% growth rate in 2004 when the BJP led NDA government demitted office.”

It said the NDA government had put in place the historic economic legislation – the Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management (FRBM) Act which sought to rein in the fiscal deficit below 3%.

“Ironically, under the Congress leadership, it is the central government that has shown scant commitment towards this resolve while the state governments are instead broadly adhering to the FRBM targets which is reflected in their financial numbers,” the resolution said.

It alleged that inflation and corruption have become the “hallmarks” of the UPA government.

“The country also has to suffer the ignominy of experiencing economic downslide under the leadership of an economist Prime Minister under whom every economic macro-parameter has steadily declined…The BJP holds the Congress led UPA government guilty of non performance, policy paralysis and lack of direction,” the resolution said.

-PTI

Ten Scams That Knocked India Off Its Feet

India shrugs at yet another scam in the country that involves people who represent honor and integrity and who rather chose to act on the contrary. However their lack of etiquette has not only cost India big sum of money but it has also cost the people the trust they have invested in the system. The scams in India that involve politicians, financial moguls, defence personnel, corporate honchos are many.

Here are the ten scams that knocked India off its feet, as reported by Apoorva Sripathi and Mowna Ravikumar for Yahoo.com

1 Chopper Deal Scam

 
The most recent of all scams in the country dealing with Rs 74.5 crore, is the Chopper deal scam. As per Reuters, the investigation which started more than a year ago against the Italian firm Finmeccanica has finally culminated to the arrest of the Italian firm head, also the former IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi confessed meeting the middle man, however he did claim to be innocent.

2 Tatra

Over 7000 trucks were manufactured by Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML) in collaboration with Tatra Vectra Motors in 2010. It was disclosed by the retired General VK Singh that he was offered a bribe of Rs 14 crore in his office in order to clear the purchase of 1,676 substandard Tatra BEML trucks. The estimated amount of the scam is 750 crore.

3 Coalgate

Coalgate is the political scandal involving the government’s allocation of the nation’s coal deposits to public sector entities and private companies between 2004 and 2009, also called the coal allocation scam. It is one of the most infamous scams in India that estimated a loss of Rs 185,591 crore. The comptroller and Auditor General (CGA) has accused the government of India for distributing 155 coal acres to companies in an arbitrary manner instead of auctioning it out to the highest bidder.

4 Antrix Devas Deal

The former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair and three other scientists were responsible for controversies created over the deal between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and commercial arm Antrix Corporation and Devas Multimedia, which was signed in 2005. The scam involved ISRO leasing the S-band transponders on two satellites, GSAT6 and GSAT6A, for broadcasting purposes to Devas Multimedia. The controversy led to G Madhavan Nair being barred from holding any government jobs in January 2012, until further review.

5 The 2G Scam

The Telecom Ministry in 2008 under the supervision of A.Raja sanctioned about 122 Licenses of the 2 G Spectrum to 85 companies which also included many new Telecom Companies with non or little experience at a price set in the year 2001.This illegal undercharging to various telecom companies of the allocated 2G licenses for cell phone subscriptions gave way to the 2G spectrum scam. The report prepared by the CAG estimating the scam amount to about Rs 176,000 crore, however, the CBI report estimates it to be Rs 30,984 crore.

6 Satyam Scam

The satyam scam, considered to be the biggest scam in Indian corporate history came out in the early 2009 which shook the Indian stock market. Satyam Computers Chief B. Ramalinga Raju manipulated the accounts which he later confessed. The misrepresentation of the accounts included showing of company’s balance sheet as Rs 5,040 crore and non- existent interest of Rs 376 crore in September 2008. Ultimately the scam that began with misappropriate books and inflated figures led to a loss of

Rs 8000 crore suffered by the Satyam chief.

7 CWG

CWG is another one of the major political scams in India. In the 2010 Commonwealth Games (CWG) Suresh Kalmadi the former chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Commonwealth Games was accused for the CWG scam. There were number of corrupt deals involved including overstated contracts. For the timing equipment from Swiss Timing, Kalmadi handed out a contract of Rs 141 crore, which was inflated by Rs 95 crores. The athletes were asked to relocate into shabby and unkempt apartments just 10 days before the games.

8 Adarsh Housing Society

In 2002, the chief minister of Maharashtra allotted land to construct a cooperative society in the heart of the Mumbai city for the ‘welfare of serving and retired personnel of the Defence Services’. Instead of the defence personnel getting flats in the society, top politicians, bureaucrats and military officials took the flats at low prices. It was found by the CBI, IT department and the ED that among the involved in the scam were Ashok Chavan, Sushilkumar Shinde and Late Vilasrao Deshmukh.

9 Vanishing Companies Scam

In 1998, Over 600 companies on the Dalal Street disappeared after raising money from the public. A probe was ordered by P Chidambaram to look into the matter. The SEBI probe revealed that at least 80 of the companies had raised Rs 330.78 crore. Later the Department of Company Affairs (DCA) was asked to start investigation and penalize the scamming company. The investigation still remains open.

10 Hawala scam

The scandal that involved Indian politicians allegedly receiving payment through four hawala brokers, the Jain brothers. An estimated Rs 1000 crore was involved in the bribery scandal implicating some India’s leading politicians like L K Advani, Sharad Yadav, Madan Lal Khurana, V C Shukla, Balram Jakhar and P Shiv Shankar. The arrest of militants in Kashmir in 1991 led to a raid on hawala brokers which revealed evidence of heavy payments made to many politicians in the country. The court case on the scandal ultimately collapsed without convictions.

Since independence the number of scams and scandals India has witnessed can leave anyone dumbstruck, with the amount of money involved India could have boosted its economy. As Gandhi said, “There is enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed,” only if the people scamming the country could understand.

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Pakistan to grant MFN status to India

Pakistan is likely to grant Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India next month, Minister of State for Commerce Abbas Khan Afridi told the Senate in Islamabad. Afridi’s statement rebuffed media reports that the government may delay awarding MFN status to India as the government was facing pressure from various stakeholders, particularly from industrialists associated with the textile industry in Pakistan. Religious extremist groups and a section of the conservative media have also opposed the move, reports the Tribune.

Islamabad has already missed a December 31 deadline to give MFN status to New Delhi as well as to end a negative list regime and trade.

Responding to a question posed by Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) Senator Najma Hameed, Afridi informed the lawmakers that the government is committed to implementing its decision by next month.

“We want this credit (of granting MFN status to India). We are heading towards the final stage now,” said Afridi. He, however, explained that “The MFN status will be awarded to India by prioritising state interests, taking all stakeholders on board in Pakistan.”

Senator Hameed had sought the progress made to grant MFN status to India as well as the benefits that Pakistan wanted to achieve after awarding this new status to India. Federal Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Fahim informed the House that positive progress has been made on the issue.

Fahim also clarified that after awarding this status to India, New Delhi will have no excuse against promoting business in the region. New Delhi has been accusing Pakistan that it’s not fulfilling the criteria set by World Trade Organisation (WTO).

“At various multilateral economic forums, India would not be able to use the argument of Pakistan being non-compliant to World Trade Organisation agreements in terms of holding back MFN status from WTO member state,” he said. The policy of new visa regime between the two nations has already been implemented with three agreements signed in September last year for countering the non-tariff barrier issues being faced by Pakistani exporters.

Pranab rejects another mercy plea

President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected the mercy petition of death-row convict Saibanna Ningappa Natikar, currently lodged in the Central Prison at Hindalga, Belgaum, Karnataka. This is his second rejection after assuming office as the President. He signed the order on January 4.

The first rejection was that of Kasab, the convict in the 26/11 Mumbai terror case hanged on

November 21.

Saibanna had submitted his mercy petition following the confirmation of his death sentence by the Supreme Court’s two-Judge Bench on April 21, 2005. Saibanna was a life convict for the murder of his first wife. While on parole in September 1994, suspecting the fidelity of his second wife, he killed her and his daughter, and attempted to commit suicide.

‘Judgment of error’

Fourteen former Judges had recently appealed to Mr. Mukherjee to commute Saibanna’s death sentence to life imprisonment, in view of Supreme Court’s admission in 2009 in another case that the Court’s confirmation of his death sentence in 2005 was per incuriam (judgment delivered out of error or ignorance).

In Santosh Kumar Bariyar v. State of Maharashtra (2009), the Supreme Court held that the Court’s confirmation of death sentence in Saibanna’s case fell foul of two binding judgments of the Supreme Court, namely, Mithu Singh v. State of Punjab (1983) and Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980).

In Mithu Singh, the Supreme Court’s five-Judge Constitution Bench struck down Section 303 of Indian Penal Code, prescribing mandatory death sentence (prescribed under Section 303 of Indian Penal Code) for convicts found guilty of committing murder while serving life sentence.

In Bachan Singh, another Constitution Bench had held that death sentence is constitutional if it is prescribed as an alternative for the offence of murder and if the normal sentence prescribed by law for murder is imprisonment for life.

In Saibanna, the Supreme Court was doubtful whether a person already undergoing imprisonment for life could be visited with another term of imprisonment for life to run consecutively with the previous one. Instead of resolving this doubt, the Court confirmed his death sentence. In Bariyar, the Court admitted that the Bench in Saibanna effectively made death punishment mandatory for the category of offenders serving life sentence.

The Karnataka High Court which first heard Saibanna’s appeal against the death sentence gave a split verdict. His appeal was then referred to the third Judge, who confirmed his death sentence.

The Supreme Court, while confirming Saibanna’s death sentence, had relied on Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab, which was on November 20 last year considered per incuriam by a two-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Sangeet v. State of Haryana.

The Hindu