The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Tuesday, November 14, 2000,
Chandigarh, India

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Dalmiya’s house raided
From Our Correspondent

NEW DELHI, Nov 13 — The Central Bureau of Investigation today raided 25 office and residential places, including of former ICC chief, Jagmohan Dalmiya and five senior Doordarshan officials, Prasar Bharti and certain TV companies in connection with the probe into the alleged bungling in allotment of television rights of cricket matches since 1996.

The raids were carried in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Bangalore and Calcutta since early morning and continued till evening, CBI sources said.

The official premises of Doordarshan officials have reportedly been sealed and they were questioned at their residences, CBI sources said.

The sources said the tournaments under scrutiny were cricket World Cup of 1996, French Open of 1997 and ICC knock-out tournament at Dhaka in 1998.

The premises of Financial Advisor of Doordarshan, P.K. Seth and Deputy Director General of (Sports and Commercial) K. Kunhikrishnan, Stratcon chief Siddharth Ray, WorldTel, owned by Mark Mascarenhas, Delhi based United Television network (UTV) were also reportedly raided.

Mr Dalmiya’s house and office were raided in association with eastern unit of the CBI in Calcutta. Officials of the Income Tax Department raided the premises of Mr Dalmiya on July 20 as parts of its nation wide action on cricket officials and players in connection with the investigation into match-fixing allegations.

The CBI sources said that certain incriminating documents showing the bungling besides the huge amount of cash have been seized from the premises during the raids.

The raids were the result of the FIR registered by the anti-corruption unit of the CBI after being satisfied that there was a prima facie case for investigation into the bungling, running into crores of rupees. The case was registered last week, the sources said.

The unit has gathered certain evidence to substantiate its case and it has earlier said some documents were being examined by it and preliminary enquiry or a regular case (FIR) would be registered very soon to probe the allegations.

The sources said that national network allegedly sold the TV rights to private firms despite having all facilities to do the work itself.

Court rejects Bush plea

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (PTI) — In what could be a setback to Republican candidate George W. Bush, a Florida court today rejected his demand for staying manual recount of over four lakh votes in the Palm Beach County in the US presidential election.

Federal District Court judge Donald M. Middlebrooks rejected the plea on behalf of Mr Bush to stop hand count in four Florida counties of the votes cast on Tuesday to elect the new President.

He said, according to CNN, even if Bush’s lawyers had a strong argument against hand count, they have to demonstrate that “irreparable harm” would be done if the hand count was not stopped, and he did not see that occurring.

Earlier a top election official of Florida today set a deadline of 5 pm tomorrow (3.30 am Wednesday IST) for all counties of the crucial state to report the result of the election, inviting sharp protest from Democrats.

Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris said all 67 counties would have to submit the results by 5 pm Tuesday and asserted that the deadline would not be extended under any circumstances.

“In order to effectuate the public’s right to clarity and finality, the law unambiguously states when the process of counting and recounting the votes cast on election day must end. For this election, that time is 5 pm November 14,” Harris said in a statement released in Florida.

Harris added that the overseas votes would be counted and certified by each county canvassing board no later than Saturday morning and “I anticipate that the presidential election in Florida will be officially certified by Saturday afternoon, barring judicial intervention.”

The deadline would effectively block the hand count in four counties as the result of the manual count is unlikely to be declared by tomorrow evening.

Democrats, who have been demanding the manual recount alleging “irregularities” in machine count, immediately questioned the move and vowed to challenge it.

AFP adds: Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Lieberman said a proposal by Harris to certify the results tomorrow, regardless of the status of manual recounts being conducted in a handful of counties across the state, would be “shocking.”