New Delhi, March 30
Former Admiral R.H. Tahiliani, along with two other petitioners, has moved the Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe or an inquiry by a special investigation group (SIG) in the Scorpene submarine deal with a French company. It has been alleged that the telephonic and SMS records “incriminatingly” indicated that at least three middlemen were involved in the deal.

A public interest litigation (PIL) with voluminous documents, filed jointly by Tahiliani and two NGOs — the Centre for Public Interest Litigation and the Citizen Forum Against Corruption — claimed that during the CBI probe into the Navy “war room leak” case which came to light in May, 2005, the agency had “found several telephone records that pointed incriminatingly towards the involvement of Abishek Verma, Kulbhushan Prashar and Ravi Shankaran as middlemen in the deal”.

The PIL alleged that Verma, the son of former Congress minister Veena Verma, described as co-founder of Montreal-based Atlas Defence Systems Private Ltd, Prashar, an arms dealer and vice-president of the firm, and Shankaran, a kin of the wife of Naval Chief Arun Prakash, had been actively involved in clinching the deal despite a provision that no middleman would be involved.

The petitioners, who have named the Ministry of Defence, the Central Vigilance Commission and the CBI as respondents, further alleged that Shankaran had close “association” with Verma and the CBI had found that telephone calls were made from Admiral Arun Prakash’s official residence on Prashar’s mobile number.

Verma, in an e-mail to Margaux Hemingway, probably a pseudonym, had been found conversing about the deal with French company Thales International and its vice-president Jean-Paul Perrier. The other French company involved in the deal was DCNI, it said.

“In a message of June 2, 2005, to Margaux Hemingway, Verma was found saying that he was negotiating on behalf of the Congress. It also came out from the message that the amount of the commission involved in the deal was 4 per cent of the total amount,” the PIL claimed.

“In another email message from Margaux Hemingway to Verma, there was an elaborate discussion on the rate of commission,” the petition said. “There were exchanges on how Armaris, the marketing company floated by Thales and shipyard owner DCNI would find a way to recover the money advanced to Thales’s earlier middlemen,” it added.

The PIL claimed that the CBI had found that regular calls were made from Verma’s mobile (981143227) to officials of the French firms in Paris and reverse calls from them to him as well on Shankaran’s Mumbai number.

New Delhi, March 30
Airports Authority of India employees’ representatives have threatened to go on a strike again if the government went ahead with the privatisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports.

Convener of the AAI Employees Joint Forum M.K. Ghoshal told a protest meeting here today, “We have not been officially intimated about any decision by the government of not including the privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports under the purview of the tripartite committee. If they go ahead with the privatisation process without informing us, we won’t hesitate to go on a strike again”.

The threat from the representatives came after there was solution in sight to the issue at the third meeting of the tripartite panel, comprising employees’ representatives and officials of the Civil Aviation Ministry and the AAI, yesterday. The committee has been set up on airport modernisation.

At the meeting Ghoshal and other union leaders demanded that the government should give in writing that the Delhi and Mumbai airports were beyond the purview of the committee.

The forum had submitted an alternative plan to the government on modernisation of airports, but it had not yet given any clarification on the status of the report that had been submitted to the official review committee.

The ministry had yesterday stated that privatisation of the airports were beyond the jurisdiction of the tripartite committee, set up in the wake of the four-day strike by airport employees in February.

Meanwhile, trade unions from other PSUs units have also joined hands with the AAIEJF against any move to privatise the state-owned enterprise.

Stating that the employees of PSUs won’t budge against any attempt by the government to privatise the public enterprises, BPCL employees’ union leader Ramashankar said, “The employees should remind the government of what happened when attempts were made to privatise IOC, BPCL and HPCL”.

New Delhi, March 30
The Centre for Social Research has expressed reservations on the “narrow scope” of the SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution.

The centre is of the view that the convention has a limited scope.

CSR Director Ranjana Kumari said at a media consultation here today, “We are not very happy with the convention as it does not address other important issues as sexual slavery, trafficking in human organs, drug peddling and exchange of arms. We have conveyed our viewpoint to the SAARC Director who looks after the issue of trafficking. He told us that this document is an agreement of minimum nature and can be expanded subject to concurrence of all other member states of SAARC.”

The SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution was adopted by all SAARC countries, except Nepal, in January, 2002. It was signed by Nepal only last year.

The CSR Director further said that the SAARC Convention raises issues of rescue, rehabilitation and repatriation of girls and women who are trafficked. She said that in keeping with the convention, bilateral agreements among member states should include the issue of repatriation, rescue and rehabilitation, legal assistance, healthy care and deportation of traffickers.

The CSR said that barring one study by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that looked at the trafficking route and the legal provisions, no study has yet been commissioned at the national level to assess the magnitude of trafficking of girls, women and men.

Jaipur, March 30
The quaint Rajasthani way of life and traditions seemed to have swept Prince Charles and his wife Camilla off their feet.

While watching the Rajasthan Day Parade here today at Janpath, the royal couple were pleasantly surprised when a folk dancer, swirling a plate on her fingers, went up to the dais to shower flowers on them.

They were all smiles and seemed to enjoy the programme every bit as the folk dances, different district tableaus depicting rural life passed them.

Camilla, who is on her first visit here, remained entranced as the bedecked camels danced and swirled before them. She also seemed to enjoy the Kalbeliya and Gair folk dances.

The Holi celebration, depicted by the Bharatpur tableau was an instant hit with the royal couple, who had a lot of queries about the festival of colours.

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Governor Pratibha Patil explained them the rich traditions of the state.

The royal couple watched the parade for more than an hour, before returning to the City Palace. — UNI

New Delhi, March 30
The Supreme Court has declined to issue a direction to the government to ban cow slaughter in spite of a Constitution Bench last year upholding the right of a state to make a law for imposing such a ban.

Explaining the difference between upholding the legislation passed by a state to ban cow slaughter and issuing a judicial order prohibiting it, a Bench of Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Mr Justice Tarun Chatterjee said even the Constitution Bench verdict “held that permitting slaughter of bovine cattle by itself is unconstitutional.”

If a direction was issued by the court to ban the slaughter of bovine cattle, it would lead to “judicial legislation and would encroach upon the power of legislature,” the court said.

The Constitution Bench had only decided the issue whether a state government had power to enact a law to ban the cow slaughter as had been laid down in the Directive Principle chapter of the Constitution, when a prohibitory law passed by the Gujarat Government was under challenge, the court said adding that the two situations were entirely different.

New Delhi, March 30
Financial powers of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee were doubled today with the Union Cabinet clearing a proposal to the effect in an effort to facilitate faster clearance of projects, particularly those related to Defence acquisitions.

While the Defence Minister can now sanction projects up to Rs 100 crore, as against Rs 50 crore earlier, the Finance Minister can now sanction projects up to Rs 200 crore, as against Rs 100 crore before.

Announcing this after a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister P.R. Dasmunsi told reporters that the enhancement of the financial powers would cover “non-scaled and new items”.

The step, according to official sources, was to prevent delays in acquisition of essential Defence hardware and spares and was in line with the Arun Singh Committee report.

However, reports suggested that all big Defence deals like the RFP’s for acquisition of 126 fighter aircraft, purchase of 155mm towed, tracked and wheeled guns, and other big bill items of purchase worth more than Rs 200 crore would have to be cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS).

Sources said the move had also been made in view of Defence Budget for 2006-07 being raised to a whopping Rs 89,000 crore, up by Rs 7,300 crore from last year’s revised estimates of Rs 81,700 crore.

New Delhi, March 30
President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has referred the NDA petition demanding the removal of Election Commissioner Navin Chawla to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

As the President appoints the CEC and the EC on the recommendations of the Centre, Dr Kalam forwarded the NDA complaint alleging that the Chawla’s family-run trust had received donations from Congress MPs from the MPs Local Area Development (MPLAD) scheme.

In the memorandum, the NDA contended that Mr Chawla’s continuation as the Election Commissioner would put a question mark on the credibility of the Election Commission in the upcoming elections to five state Assemblies.

They demanded his removal from the EC for his alleged links with the Congress and the role he played during Emergency.

The NDA has also sent a copy of their memorandum to the Chief Election Commissioner.

Mr Chawla, who was appointed as Election Commissioner last year, is accused of having received over Rs 85 lakh for his family trust from Congress politicians.

The memorandum cited Shah Commission’s report to drive home NDA’s contention that Mr Chawla was “unfit” to hold any public office.

Though the NDA had submitted the petition on March 16 demanding the immediate removal of Mr Chawla in view of the April/May Assembly elections in four states — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam — and Pondicherry, the sources were not sure of a decision before the poll.

In the 12-page petition, signed by 205 MPs, including BJP president Rajnath Singh, his predecessor L.K. Advani, and NDA convener George Farnandes, the Opposition said: “The Election Commission must be absolutely impartial. It must also appear to be impartial.”

In view of this, Mr Chawla must be removed from the sensitive post of the EC, the NDA had contended.

Mr Chawla was accused of misusing Congress MPLAD scheme for the Lepra India Trust run by his wife.

Among the Congress MPs who allegedly provided funds from the MPLAD scheme are A.A. Khan, R.P. Goenka, Ambika Soni, Dr Karan Singh and A.R. Kidwai.