New Delhi, May 7
The BJP today sought to raise the pitch over the reported flood relief scam in Bihar, demanding CBI probe into it and accusing Governor Buta Singh of trying to “dilute the scam” in the guise of the Vigilance Department inquiry to protect Union Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, then Chief Minister Rabri Devi and his brother-in-law Sadhu Yadav.

“The flood relief scam exposed by a national daily a fortnight ago could turn out to be a bigger scam than the Fodder Scam and cross the figure of Rs 400 crore if impartial inquiry is conducted. However, as the RJD Chief and his brother-in-law as well as some LJP leaders are directly involved in this scandal, the Bihar Governor has initiated moves of diluting the scam in the guise of conducting Vigilance inquiry,” BJP Vice-President Sushil Kumar Modi told mediapersons here.

Charging that the Governor has initiated a “cover up operation” by ordering inquiry by the Vigilance Department of Bihar instead of handing over the probe to the CBI, the BJP leader said “a CBI probe should be immediately ordered to unearth the scam fully as comparatively CBI is a better equipped and competent investigating agency than the state Vigilance Department.”

“The BJP’s charge is that major portion of relief amount was being deposited in election fund of the RJD through then Patna District Magistrate Gautam Goswami and Santosh Jha, who had business links with Sadhu Yadav. That is why no action was taken even after exposing the bungling. So, Lalu Yadav and then Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi should be put under the purview of CBI inquiry,” Mr Modi said.

Mr Modi also announced that the BJP’s newly-elected MLAs along with party’s state unit leaders would stage a “Raj Bhavan march” on May 10 in Patna demanding CBI inquiry in this scandal and would plan state-wide agitation in the entire Bihar to press their demand.

Besides, Mr Modi said the party was also taking legal opinion on moving a PIL in the court on the “flood relief scam” to ensure that an impartial probe under the watchful eyes of a High Court judge was conducted.

Mr Modi said although over a fortnight has passed after the scam was exposed, no accused persons had been questioned about the case what to say of making any arrest in the case. “Neither any FIR has been lodged nor any bank account of accused persons have been sealed. Even departmental proceeding have not been started against Mr Goswami, who has illegally resigned without any permission,” Mr Modi charged.

Moreover, Mr Modi charged that four officials of the Vigilance Department, who had brought this scam to the notice of Chief Secretary of Bihar Subramanyam had been transferred and officials having “not so good reputation” had been asked to probe the case.

“Relief commissioner Ashok Vardhan, who detected this large-scale irregularity in distribution of public relief material on August 21, 2004 had recommended a vigilance inquiry on the file itself. But, Mr Subramanyam on the instance of then defacto Chief Minister Lalu Prasad had slept over the file for eight long months,” Mr Modi in a two-page statement said.

Alleging that the modus operandi used to loot the flood relief material was similar to that used in fodder scandal, Mr Modi charged that “No material was purchased for flood relief, but payments were made on fictitious bills. Though roads were cut off in several districts of Bihar for months, on paper the flood material was shown as transported by trucks.”

“In several districts the ministers of the RJD government, MLAs, MPs had personally collected the relief material and got it distributed in their respective constituencies, where as the District Magistrate should have collected the relief material and got it distributed under the supervision of government officers,” he alleged adding “the payment of crores of rupees was received in a day after opening fake bank account. The relief materials received as donation were shown to have been purchased and payment received against them.”

New Delhi, May 7
The CAG has rapped Union Tribal Affairs Ministry for providing financial assistance worth Rs 7.90 crore to the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, for the construction of a hostel in contravention of the rules.

The ministry had sanctioned money from the centrally sponsored scheme for construction of boy’s hostel for Scheduled Tribes, which the report said, was wrong.

“The action of the ministry in diverting funds meant for welfare of ST students defeated the very objective of the scheme,” the report said.

The premier engineering institute had sought the assistance of the ministry to construct a hostel for 380 students at a cost of Rs 8.01 crore for housing students of all castes and creeds.

The report said the IIT had categorically mentioned that it would not be possible to restrict the allotment of hostel rooms to only ST students.

“Despite this, the ministry approved a grant of Rs 7.90 crore for construction of 380 seats and released the first instalment of Rs 50 lakhs. This was irregular as the funds meant specifically for benefitting ST students were diverted to other categories. Diversion of funds for benefitting students of general category was irregular and defeated the objective of the scheme,” it said.

The CAG said the ministry had also not installed any mechanism to determine how many seats of the hostel constructed by the IIT with this financial assistance would actually be given to ST students.

The ministry had stated to CAG that it had approved the hostel construction proposal as the IIT had decided to increase the number of seats in courses by 25 per cent and it did not have the necessary infrastructure to meet the need for additional seats in the hostel.

“Since the idea was to bring the ST students into the mainstream, it had approved IIT Delhi’s proposal to construct a hostel for all castes and creeds,” it added.

The CAG said the financial assistance under the scheme could be given for only 100 seat-hostel and the ministry had no means of determining to what extent the funds, which were meant for benefitting ST students, had actually benefitted. The action of the ministry in diverting funds meant for welfare of ST students defeated the very objective of the scheme.

New Delhi, May 7
The CBI will seek permission from the Supreme Court for closure of 15 petrol pump allotment scam cases against former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Satish Sharma, the agency informed a special court here today.

The special court had expressed its inability to take a decision in the matter after the CBI filed a closure report last month and asked the agency to get clearance from the apex court, which had finally heard the matter when the scam came to light in 1996.

Mr Sharma was accused of allotting over 400 petrol pumps from his discretionary quota in favour of party workers, close relatives and friends in violation of rules.

When the matter was taken up for hearing today by Special Judge Pratibha Rani, the CBI counsel said the agency "will move the Supreme Court soon about the closure report as the matter is being examined." The CBI is processing an affidavit for filing before the apex court in this regard.

New Delhi, May 7
The Supreme Court has held that DNA test will not be considered a ground for challenging the right of succession in parental property as such a provision had not been envisaged in the Indian Succession Act.

“In an order to succeed in the succession application, the applicant has to adduce cogent and credible evidence in support of his application and the respondents, if they chose, can also adduced evidence to oppose the grant of succession certificate…but adjudication of such cases on the basis of DNA test is not a correct view,” a Bench of Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr Justice S H Kapadia held.

The ruling came in a case where a brother in Delhi had questioned the right of his “sister” to succeed a part of their father’s property, alleging that she was making a wrong claim as the daughter of his father. In fact, she was the daughter of one of his five brothers.

While deciding such matters, the lower courts should take into consideration the fact that Section 112 of the Evidence Act was based on a well-know maxim “pater est quem nuptias demonstrant (he is the father whom the marriage indicates). The presumption or legitimacy is that a child born out a married woman is deemed to be a legitimate child.”

To establish the parenthood of the woman, a civil court had ordered her DNA test, which was overruled by the Delhi High Court, holding that there was no such provision of proving parenthood under the Indian Succession Act in this manner. Aggrieved by the High Court order, the brother had moved the apex court.

Interestingly, two of the five brothers in the family and their parents had died when the suit was filed by the woman for claiming the right of succession in the property way back in 1944.

During the course of trial, while the woman claimed that she was the sister of the five brothers, one of the brother who contested her claim, came out with documents that she, in fact, was the daughter of his deceased brother.

To overcome the confusion, the trial court had ordered her DNA test.

Overruling the trial court order and upholding the ruling of the High Court, the apex court said: “The main object of a succession certificate is to facilitate collection of debts of succession and afford protection to parties paying debts to representatives of deceased persons…such certificate does not give any general power of administration of the estate or the deceased.

New Delhi, May 7
The Lok Sabha Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, today expressed his anguish and agony over the continuing boycott of Parliament by the BJP-led NDA. Mr Chatterjee, in his interview to a news-channel, said he did not believe that his was a “particularly troubled speakership”, but admitted that “certainly I haven’t had job satisfaction .... Well, it’s not a satisfying job I am doing, I can tell you”.

“But since the people have put me there, I’m not running away. I had almost thought of it but I’m not now running away,” he added.

Maintaining that ever since he became the Speaker, there was no occasion where he refused any discussion or not permitted any discussion, he said “I have always said ‘please raise issues on the floor of the House and I shall permit’, but they (Opposition) in their wisdom decided not to participate.”

New Delhi, May 7
After Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, it is now the turn of Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to fall from grace.

Mr Deshmukh wants to drop a few ministers and reshuffle his Cabinet. But despite his repeated entreaties to the Congress leadership, he has failed to get the green signal from New Delhi. As of now, he has only been permitted to fill the three vacancies in the Cabinet and that, too, has been delayed till after the ongoing Parliament session.

This is a clear snub to Mr Deshmukh, who has made innumerable trips to Delhi in the last two weeks to persuade the party high command that he needed to drop some ministers on account of their poor performance. In fact, the Chief Minister had to camp here for several days before he was granted an audience with Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

But despite this meeting and several rounds of discussions with Mrs Gandhi’s Political Secretary Ahmed Patel and AICC General Secretary Margaret Alva, he has failed to have his way. The AICC leadership has told him that since the government was formed only six months ago, it is still too early to affect a large-scale reshuffle as the move could prove counter-productive and end up fuelling dissensions in the state unit.

This is, however, only the tip of the iceberg. Mr Deshmukh has earned the Congress leadership’s ire on several counts. The Maharashtra government’s handling of the ongoing power crisis is the latest in the long list of complaints against him. With the BJP-Shiv Sena launching a frontal attack against prolonged power cuts, an angry Congress leadership has asked the Chief Minister to take immediate corrective measures. A harried Mr Deshmukh has subsequently had two meetings with Power Minister P.M. Sayeed in this connection and is expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on his return from Russia.

Mr Deshmukh first found himself in the dock when he ordered a slum demolition drive in Mumbai. Having touted itself as a party for the “aam aadmi”, this move proved to be a huge embarrassment for the Congress leadership. Mr Deshmukh was summoned by Mrs Sonia Gandhi and told to call off the drive. Mr Deshmukh’s subsequent statement that “outsiders” were not welcome in Mumbai further enraged his own party members who felt the Chief Minister was “speaking the language of Shiv Sena.” The AICC sought an explanation from him to which Mr Deshmukh insisted he had been misquoted. However, the damage was already done.

Similarly, the state government’s ban on dance bars and the new water irrigation laws which have led to a huge public outcry, have not gone down well with the party leadership here. The first decision has rendered nearly 80,000 dance girls unemployed while the UPA government has come under attack for following the BJP-Shiv Sena’s agenda of “cultural policing.”

Like the state government’s slum demolition drive, its new water irrigation law could cost the party dear as it seeks to increase water tariffs for farmers while those with more than two children will be required to pay one and half times more than the others.

This could well prove suicidal for a party, which is purported to be sympathetic to the poor farmer. 

New Delhi, May 7
Islamic extremists continue to thrive in Pakistan under President Pervez Musharraf because of his reliance on the religious right to retain power and mullahs have never been so powerful in Pakistan as now, says the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) in its latest report.

Mullahs in Pakistan today control two of four provincial governments and are also influencing national politics through their presence in the National Assembly.

The report, titled “The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan” also puts the Musharraf regime on the mat on the question of terrorism. It says howsoever significant the Musharraf’s government successes against Al Qaida, including some 600 arrests of Al Qaida cadres, its record against Pakistani terrorist organisations is “far from impressive”. Pakistan’s sectarian organisations, many with close links to Al Qaida, have continued to flourish, belying General Musharraf’s claims that his government had “broken the back of terrorism” and “our cities have been almost cleared of terrorists”.

“These sectarian extremists are simultaneously fighting internal sectarian and regional jihads in Afghanistan and Indian-administered Kashmir, and an external jihad, against the West in general and more specifically against the USA,” says the ICG report in a damning comment.

Ironically, as President Musharraf is praised by the international community for his role in the war against terrorism, the frequency and viciousness of sectarian terrorism continues to increase in his country. General Musharraf’s lack of domestic legitimacy has forced the military to rely on alliances of convenience with the religious right, based on the politics of patronage.

The leading thinktank opines: “In the absence of international support, moderate, secular and democratic parties will remain in the political cold. The choice that Pakistan faces is not between the military and the mullahs, as is generally believed in the West, it is between genuine democracy and a military-mullah alliance that is responsible for producing and sustaining religious extremism of many hues.”

General Musharraf may have pledged to undo former President Zia ul Haq’s legacy by transforming Pakistan into a moderate Muslim state, his performance in past five years is not dissimilar to that of General Zia, the ICG report says bluntly. Under General Musharraf, Zia’s Islamisation measures, the primary source of religious extremism and sectarian conflict, remain untouched.

“Sectarian conflict in Pakistan,” concludes the ICG, “is the direct consequence of state policies of Islamisation and marginalisation of secular democratic forces. Co-option and patronage of religious parties by successive military governments have brought Pakistan to a point where religious extremism threatens to erode the foundations of the state and society.”

New Delhi, May 7
The Prime Minister has approved a new system for the appraisal of the performance of officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). The existing system of assessment based on annual confidential report (ACR) is to be replaced by a new instrument called performance appraisal report (PAR).

“The PAR would be a tool for career planning and training and not just a statement of a senior’s opinion of a junior”, a spokesperson of the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) said.

Apart from the PAR, a new system of “peer review” of senior officers by an “Eminent Persons Group (EPG)” has also been approved. The EPG will ascertain the reputation of a civil servant, seeking inputs from peers, juniors and clients on a confidential basis.

A high-level selection committee, including the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, will select members of the EPG. The EPG will have a five-year term and will appraise an officer only once.

“The reputation of an officer in terms of integrity, competence, attitude and personal qualities will be assessed once every year by the EPG. The EPG may seek information from intelligence agencies also. The EPG’s report will be confidential and not part of the PAR”, the PMO spokesperson said.

These reports (of the EPG and the intelligence agencies) will be used only when posting officers an sensitive posts, at the time of empanelment and to counsel an officer.

Mumbai, May 7
The Maharashtra Government has informed the Bombay High Court that it will not evict slum dwellers who encroached on public land before January 1, 2000 till alternative accommodation was provided to them.

The affidavit filed by the state government last week meant that the slum demolition drive, undertaken on the orders of Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh earlier this year, had been abandoned. Mr Deshmukh had said that all slums built after January 1, 1995 would be demolished.

However, the slum demolition drive was stymied on the orders of Congress President Sonia Gandhi after party MLAs from Mumbai prevailed upon her to halt the drive.

The Bombay High Court was hearing a petition filed by a citizens’ group which challenged the government’s decision to repeatedly extend protection to unauthorised slum-dwellers since 1976.

The Maharashtra Government said in its affidavit that 3.8 lakh slum dwellers, which moved into the city from 1995 to 2000, would benefit from the government’s move.

However, a financial crunch had forced the state government to modify the slum rehab plan. The government’s plans had, however, come in for fresh opposition from the ruling party MLAs.

Quoting a study conducted by the Tata Institute of Social Studies, Neera Punj of a local NGO, Citispace, pointed out that 30 per cent of the slum dwellers, who were provided alternate accommodation, had sold their flats and returned to their shanties.

New Delhi, May 7
Two special invitees of the Indian Ex-Services League (IESL) — Maj Gen Bikram Singh Kanwar and Cmdr V.S.P. Mudaliar — left for Moscow on Friday to take part in the 60th anniversary of victory in World War II.

On their return, they will be greeted by Russian Ambassador to India Vyacheslav Trubnikov at the embassy here on May 11.

Maj-Gen Kanwar served in the Army from l952 to 1985 and took part in the 1965 and 1971 conflict with Pakistan and led several counter terrorist operations for which he was decorated with two medals.

He has shown keen interest in collaborating with organisations of the Russian war veterans.

Cmdr Mudaliar was born in 1916 and received technical education in Great Britain.

As a Naval Engineer of the British Navy in 1941-42, he played a role in the technical preparation of the northern sea convoys that ensured military supplies to the city of Murmansk.

New Delhi, May 7
India today welcomed the formation of a new transitional government in Iraq and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has sent a congratulatory message to new Iraqi Premier Ibrahim Al Jaafari.

“In keeping with India’s long tradition of close political, economic and cultural ties with Iraq, Prime Minister conveyed that India values and would like to further strengthen the bonds of friendship between our two countries,” a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs said.