L A T E S T      N E W S

SC to hear review plea in 2G licence case 

New Delhi: Justice KS Radhakrishnan has been put on the Supreme Court bench to hear a bunch of pleas by the Centre and various telecom firms, seeking reviews of various aspects of the verdict cancelling 122 2G spectrum licences. He replaces AK Patnaik, who came in the place of justice Asok Ganguly, who has retired. 

Justice GS Singhvi, who is heading the bench in the 2G matters, earlier on March 16 had said chief justice SH Kapadia has set up a new bench comprising him and justice Patnaik for hearing all cases on the 2G spectrum scam.

The cause list for Tuesday, however, shows that justice Singhvi and justice Radhakrishnan will take up the petitions for in-chamber hearing, which is normally done in case of the review and curative pleas.

A bench of justice GS Singhvi and justice AK Ganguly (now retired) had passed a slew of rulings in the scam including the order cancelling the 122 2G spectrum licences granted by former telecom minister A Raja and had held that the first-come-first-served (FCFS) policy could not be used for the allocation of natural resources.

It had also pulled up the PMO for sitting on the complaint filed against Raja and set a time limit of four months for the government to take a decision on granting sanction to prosecute a corrupt public servant.

In the aftermath of the apex court verdicts, several petitions have been filed by various bodies, including the Centre, the telecom firms, the NGOs and former minister Raja, seeking various reliefs, including review, clarification and recall of the apex court's order.

US announces $ 10m bounty on Lashkar head 

New Delhi: In a major boost to New Delhi’s fight against terrorism, the US administration of President Barack Obama has announced a reward of $10 million for the capture or information leading to the arrest of 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed. 

Pakistan-based Hafiz Saeed is the founder of one of the deadliest terrorist outfits Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the chief of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). 

Reports, Tuesday, claimed that the announcement by the Obama administration was formally conveyed to New Delhi by visiting US Under-Secretary of Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman yesterday. 

In her maiden trip to India, Sherman further informed top Indian officials that apart from Saeed, his brother-in-law and co-founder of Lashkar Abdul Rehman Makki also carries a bounty of $3 million on his head. 

Both LeT and JuD have been blacklisted by the US authorities for their deep-neck involvement in terrorism. 

The JuD chief is on India's most-wanted list since the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, in which 166 people, including six Americans, were killed by Pakistan-trained terrorists. 

Saeed is believed to be the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks and Indian investigators have provided concrete evidence of his involvement in the 26/11 incident to Pakistan.

CBI plea against Talwar in HC today 

Ghaziabad: The Allahabad High Court will on Tuesday hear an application filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), challenging the Ghaziabad CBI court’s order extending the bail of Rajesh Talwar in the double murder case of his 13-year-old daughter Aarushi Talwar and domestic help Hemraj.

The CBI court in Ghaziabad had last month allowed Talwar to remain on bail till April 11, referring to the Supreme Court’s observation that the accused father was virtually on bail.