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Dubey murder: Life term for 3
Satyendra Dubey
No evidence of mafia role: CBI
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’84 Riots Case
Congress, BJP exchange brickbats
Uma set to return to BJP
India on terror radar: Govt
PM: Pending cases denting India’s image
Ordnance Corps headless for 2 yrs
Prithvi-II, Dhanush
test-fired successfully
Fresh gunfight between police, Naxals
Stephen Court builder’s granddaughter in trauma
SS Ray hospitalised
Students’ body seeks protection of N-E women
Students’ body seeks protection of N-E women
HC: Consider district status for Amethi
Gujjar-govt talks on quota make headway
Blow to Dinakaran as HC curbs CJ’s powers
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Dubey murder: Life term for 3
Patna, March 27 They also revealed that Dubey, an alumni of IIT Kanpur, had written a confidential letter to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and also the Chief Vigilance Officer of the NHAI, exposing the nexus of corrupt officials with the contractors. He had also pleaded anonymity fearing threat to his life. In view of the media hype generated by the said murder case, the Bihar government handed over the probe of this case to the CBI within two weeks of the incident. The CBI found that Dubey was killed during a road robbery by petty thieves of Gaya. The investigating agency found four persons namely Mantu Kumar (main assailant), Uday Kumar, Pinku Ravidas and Shrawan Kumar involved in this case and also recovered Dubey’s briefcase with his personal belongings from their possession beside a country-made pistol used in the murder. Subsequently, one of the accused, Shrawan Kumar, turned an approver (prosecution witness) in the case and the remaining three were charged and prosecuted for the murder. Finally, after six years of investigation and trial, the trio were convicted and sentenced for life term by the court today. Notably, the prosecution story also revealed that the CBI had carried out a thorough probe into the allegations levelled by Dubey’s friends and family members regarding his killing. The CBI found the allegations of Dubey to be credible and on its basis, it registered a separate case under the Prevention of Corruption Act against some officials of the NHAI and contractors.
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No evidence of mafia role: CBI
Patna, March 27 The CBI conducted "an impartial, fair and professional investigation in the case," the agency said in a statement as the three convicted for Dubey's murder were sentenced to life imprisonment by a special CBI court here. "The investigation into the case of robbery and murder of Satyendra Kumar Dubey was pursued in all plausible directions, including possible conspiracy hatched by the contractors, mafia to eliminate Dubey as alleged by his brother Dhananjay Kumar Dubey," the CBI said. Accusing the CBI of a cover-up, Dubey's brother Dhananjay had claimed that the three convicted were "purely innocent" and the real culprits were still on the loose. However, the CBI claimed that "no evidence came on record showing that deceased Satyender Kumar Dubey was eliminated under any conspiracy by the contractors or mafia as alleged in the complaint of his brother Dhananjay. "A number of officials, contractors and engineers connected with the NHAI Project were examined with reference to the issues raised by deceased in his letter addressed to the Prime Minister of India," CBI spokesperson said.
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Court disallows plea of co-accused
New Delhi, March 27 "The grounds taken in the application that the present court is not competent to try the case, is without any force as every Additional Sessions Judge is competent to try every Sessions trial pertaining to entire area in the territorial jurisdiction of Delhi," special CBI Judge PS Teji said. The court, however, sent the files relating to the two cases to the District Judge, Tis Hazari court, for the proper allocation of the matter. "A request is hereby forwarded to learnt District judge to issue instructions to proceed with the matter," the court said. Disallowing the plea of Khushal Singh, the court said: “The argument advanced that the court is not having jurisdiction is without any basis and not acceptable." "It is further pertinent to mention that the court is fully competent to try the present Sessions trial being Additional Sessions Judge in respect of territorial jurisdiction of any police district," it said. Meanwhile, the court directed all the accused, including Sajjan Kumar, who were present before the court, to appear before it on April 1. Khushal pleaded before the Karkardooma Court to transfer the matters to other judge having territorial jurisdiction to try them. He argued that it did not have jurisdiction to try the cases as the offences were alleged to have been committed at Sultanpuri and Delhi Cantonment area. — PTI
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Congress, BJP exchange brickbats
New Delhi, March 27 “It is unprecedented for a person holding the constitutional position of a chief minister to be summoned for investigation in a case of mass murder. If the BJP has even an iota of morality, it should have asked him to step down before bringing such a high office to ill-repute,” Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said. Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily said it signified the prominence of justice in India. “This only shows that no one is above law, not even a sitting CM,” Moily said. The BJP, however, positioned itself firmly on Modi’s side, saying the event was no embarrassment to the party or to the CM. “We are with Narendra Modi and he was in any case supposed to appear before the SIT,” BJP spokesperson Ramnath Kovind said. Prakash Javadekar, another party spokesperson, blamed the media for creating a hype around the non-appearance of Modi before the investigating body. “Modi respects the law and the institution set up by the Supreme Court. Media speculated too much about his not appearing before the SIT,” he said. Another Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan, however, blamed the BJP for sitting on the issue and said Modi should be brought to justice. Countering the charge, BJP’s Nirmala Sitharaman said there was no FIR against the Gujarat Chief Minister. The Left Parties also slammed Modi for his role in the Gujarat riots and said the BJP should let the law take its course.
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Uma set to return to BJP
New Delhi, March 27 Signs of things to come became evident last week, when she appeared at an event in Lucknow alongside RSS ideologue Madhav Govind Vaidya. She sat among party front rankers, president Nitin Gadkari also in tow. It was her first formal appearance at a BJP function in about four years or so. And like always, she hogged the limelight, with TV cameras rushing to capture her mood in the company of former colleagues. The next thing you hear is she has resigned from Bharatiya JanShakti, the party she founded in 2005, after being expelled from the BJP following her outburst against veteran LK Advani, whose pro-Jinnah remarks had irked her. But bygones seem bygones now, with BJP national spokesperson Ramnath Kovind telling The Tribune today that Uma Bharti was welcome back into the fold. “She has always believed that she and the BJP are made for each other,” another senior leader said, admitting that differences of opinion remained over her return to the party. Asked if the BJP and RSS had forgiven her for her anti-party activities and the infamous outbursts against Advani, a senior BJP office bearer said, “Just like we had misgivings towards her, she had some towards us. We need to put all that behind us and open a new chapter”.
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India on terror radar: Govt
New Delhi, March 27 However, security forces had the capacity to give a “swift and decisive” response to any terror attack targetted against the country, he added. He said the challenge before security was that the source of terror lay across the border and they had the support of the state and therefore their capacity to reach here and strike was very high. “Let me assure you, we will prevail as we have the capacity to face any challenge of terror. Should there be any terror attack on this country, our response will be swift and decisive and we will prevail upon any terrorist threat on this country,” he added. Punjab Guv on LeT hit list The Union Home ministry has received an intelligence input that Pakisan-based terrorists would be targeting Punjab Governor Shivraj Patil. Highly-placed sources said following an intercept that the LeT was planning a strike on Patil, the Centre had sent an advisory to the Punjab government telling it to be on alert. |
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PM: Pending cases denting India’s image
New Delhi, March 27 “The Indian legal and judicial system in some sense reflects great contradiction. Our democracy and legal system have strengths that are admired all over the world. We have a free press, a true independent judiciary and independent institutions like the Election Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India which underpin our democratic framework…However, all these strengths are somewhat diminished due to the backlog of cases,” he said. He was addressing a national convention on “Law and justice and the common man”. “I urge the state governments to initiate immediate action to operationalise the Act. Once fully implemented, we will have more than 5,000 courts at village panchayat level. These will bring justice at doorstep of common people,” he said. He said the government was also setting up 71 additional CBI courts in various states. It was expected that these fast-track courts would conduct their business “differently” and faster than normal courts and help reduce the number of pending cases significantly.
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Ordnance Corps headless for 2 yrs
Chandigarh, March 27 According to sources, a court of inquiry that concluded at New Delhi a few days ago, held Maj Gen GS Narula blameworthy for lapses in procurement of equipment and recommended action against him. Presided by Lt Gen P. Mohapatra, Signals Officer-in-Chief at Army Headquarters, had investigated irregularities in the procurement of items of personal clothing and personal kits for troops proceeding on UN assignments. The inquiry had been ordered in December after Lok Sabha member Harsh Vardhan reportedly wrote to Defence Minister AK Antony earlier this year, highlighting irregularities in procurement of supplies for troops on UN missions. According to the letter, some items were procured at double the cost and the loss to the Army on this count was Rs 2.82 crore. Narula was posted as Additional Director-General (ADG) in the Ordnance Directorate at Army HQs at the time the said purchases were made. Earlier, two other Maj Generals, who had also served on the same post as Narula, have been held blameworthy by the courts of inquiries. Sources said summary of evidence (SOE) in case of Maj Gen Anil Swarup is currently underway at Jammu. Swarup, who has been attached to the Yol-based 9 Corps, was blamed by the CoI for procuring generators, cables and boots at inflated prices. Swarup moved the Armed Forces Tribunal, challenging the proceedings against him and the case is expected to come up for hearing later this month. The third officer, Maj Gen SP Sinha, at present posted at Chandimandir, was accused of irregularities in the purchase of general stores for the ordnance depot at Choeki. Inferior goods were allegedly bought at inflated prices. Then there is a case of Maj Gen AK Kapur, against who the CBI filed a chargesheet for possessing assets disproportionate to known sources of income. A Maj General from the AOC has recently been approved for promotion to the rank of Lt General. There are two vacancies of Lt General in the AOC, one of Director-General Ordnance Services at Army Headquarters and the other as Commandant of the AOC Centre at Secunderabad.
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Prithvi-II, Dhanush
test-fired successfully
‘Balasore (Orissa), March 27 “The tests were successful. Both the missiles test-fired early today met all the parameters,” the director of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, SP Dash, said. While the ‘Prithvi-II’ was test-fired from complex-3 of ITR Chandipur, 15-km from here, from a mobile launcher at around 05:48 hours, the ‘Dhanush’ was fired from INS-Subhadra in the Bay of Bengal near Puri at around 05:44 hours by the Navy personnel as part of user training exercise. The test firing of the short-range, surface-to-surface ‘Prithvi-II’ ballistic missile having a range of 295 km, which has already been inducted into the armed forces, was a user trial by the Army. The sleek missile is “handled by the strategic force command,” the sources said. Prithvi, the first ballistic missile developed under the country's prestigious Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), has the capability to carry 500-kg of warhead and has liquid propulsion twine engine. With a nine-metre length and one-metre diameter, Prithvi- II uses an advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory and reach the targets with a few metre accuracy. The entire trajectory of today’s trial was tracked down by a battery of sophisticated radars and an electro-optic telemetry stations were positioned in different locations for post-launch analysis, defence sources said. The nuclear-capable ‘Dhanush’, the naval version of Prithvi, followed the pre-designated trajectory with text-book precision and two naval ships located near the target have tracked the splash, sources said. The 350-km range missile will give the Navy the capability to attack enemy targets with great precision. The sophisticated radar systems located along the coast monitored its entire trajectory, the sources said. The single stage missile, weighing six tonne, is powered by liquid propellants. — PTI
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Fresh gunfight between police, Naxals
Kolkata, March 27 The fire-fight began when the special anti-Maoist CoBRA personnel were carrying out a search in Hatiloth and Bhalukbasa forests, both in Salboni area, besides Chotokalsibhanga forest in Lalgarh area, the police sources said. There were no immediate reports of any casualty. Asked whether Kishenji, who twice escaped arrest, was hurt in Thursday's gun battle with the joint forces, Superintendent of Police Manoj Verma told PTI, "A group of Maoists in Hatiloth forest were injured, but it cannot be said for certain whether Kishenji was present." Kishenji was trapped when the joint forces surrounded a group of Maoists during the release of kidnapped Officer-in-Charge of Sankrail police station Atindranath Dutta on October 22 last year. However, he escaped after threatening to kill Dutta. On January 21, Kishenji gave the second slip, while his laptop and headphones were seized at a jungle between Jitushol and Dumurpota under Kotwali police station. Stating that the anti-Naxal personnel had cordoned off Lalgarh, Jamboni and Kotwali police station areas and were tightening the noose on the Maoists, the police official said, "If Kishenji had called up the media to state that he was hurt it would have been a different matter, but there is no specific information about him." Another senior police officer told PTI, "I have also heard that he is hurt, but there is no information about his whereabouts." Asked whether the elusive Maoist leader was in Midnapore district or had fled, another senior police officer said his mobile phone was being tracked. On whether any Maoist has been eliminated in the ongoing encounter, Verma said "We cannot say anything until a body is recovered. So far we have not recovered a body." The official said two Maoist squad leaders Sanatan Pal and Prasanta Patra were arrested from Salboni area yesterday. They were produced in court today and remanded to police custody till April 4. Sanatan was arrested with an SLR rifle, while Prasanta, regarded as a big catch, was involved in all major attacks in Belpahari and Banspahari area of the district for the past three years, Verma said. — PTI
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Stephen Court builder’s granddaughter in trauma
Kolkata, March 27 “The sight of her grandfather's building, built a century ago, in flames left her worried and shaken and she went into a trauma,” authorities of Sir Catchik Paul Chater Home, better known as Armenian Home, in Park Circus, where she and her husband have found refuge, said. “What added to the shock was that the building caught fire on her birthday,” Peter
Hyrapiet, president of Armenian Club located in nearby Queens Mansions, said. Eighty-four-year-old Irene, whose grandfather, an Armenian businessman, who also set up the Grand Hotel here, and her 89-year-old Englishman husband Jimmy were in their second floor flat in the building when the fire broke out. — PTI
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SS Ray hospitalised
Kolkata, March 27 Doctors said at present his condition was stable. A four-doctor medical board was set up for his treatment. Hospital director Rana Mukherjee attending on the 90-year-old former ambassador to the US said Ray developed several old-age problems for which he needed constant treatment. Ray had been the Chief Minister of West Bengal from 1972 to 76, prior to his appointment as Punjab Governor..
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Students’ body seeks protection of N-E women
Guwahati, March 27 NESO chairman Samujjal Bhattacharya and secretary general Gunjum Haider today expressed concern over the frequent reports of harassment of women from the Northeastern states in the NCR and said it was the duty of the Delhi Government to protect them. The NESO leaders said they would soon launch an agitation demanding special constitutional rights for the N-E states, including rights over land and natural resources as they believed that ‘political injustice meted out to the region’ coupled with ‘economic exploitation’ of its resources were the key reasons behind the plethora of burning problems in the region. — TNS
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Students’ body seeks protection of N-E women Guwahati, March 27 NESO chairman Samujjal Bhattacharya and secretary general Gunjum Haider today expressed concern over the frequent reports of harassment of women from the Northeastern states in the NCR and said it was the duty of the Delhi Government to protect them. The NESO leaders said they would soon launch an agitation demanding special constitutional rights for the N-E states, including rights over land and natural resources as they believed that ‘political injustice meted out to the region’ coupled with ‘economic exploitation’ of its resources were the key reasons behind the plethora of burning problems in the region. — TNS
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HC: Consider district status for Amethi
Lucknow, March 27 The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High court yesterday gave three months to the state government to consider constitution of the new Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj Nagar district, till now known as Amethi presently part of Sultanpur district. The Division Bench comprising acting Chief Justice Amitabha Lala and Justice Anil Kumar gave the directive on a petition filed by advocate Uma Shanker. The court has also asked the state government to consider the re-creation of the separate Amethi district that was carved out from three tehsils of Sultanpur - Amethi, Gauriganj and Musafirkhana - and two tehsils of Rae Bareli - Salon and Tiloi. The restoration of the district remains a formality, as it was the BSP-BJP government headed by Mayawati that had created the new district. During a rally in Amethi on December 11, 2002, Mayawati had announced the creation of the district that was formally formed on May 21, 2003. When the Mulayam Singh Yadav government assumed power later that year it cancelled the notification for the formation of the nine districts and three divisions. The provocation for the sudden creation of a separate district of Amethi by the then Mayawati government was more political than administrative one. On Rahul’s reaction to the creation of the new district, Congress spokesperson Akhilesh Pratap Singh said he was present with Rahul Gandhi in Amethi today, but the matter did not come up.
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Gujjar-govt talks on quota make headway
Jaipur, March 27 Bainsla reached Jaipur in the afternoon after receiving a positive feedback from his aides about the first round of talks with the state government last evening. The three-member ministerial panel comprised Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal, Energy Minister Jitendra Singh and Transport Minister Brij Kishore Sharma. According to sources, the two sides have agreed on four issues - renewal of arms licences that were cancelled during the Gujjar agitations in previous years, job to the next of kin of those killed during the stir, disabled pension and vocational training at ITIs for those seriously injured, and pending agitation-related cases to be redressed within three months. However, a final decision on the key issue of 5 per cent reservation to the Gujjars and recruitments for 80,000 government jobs will be taken in the crucial meeting between Bainsla and Gehlot.
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Blow to Dinakaran as HC curbs CJ’s powers
Bangalore, March 27 A division Bench headed by justices N Kumar and Srinivase Gowda struck down a circular issued by Dinakaran on December 29, 2008. The circular had divided jurisdictional power among the two circuit Benches (at Gulbarga and Dharwad) and the principal Bench at Bangalore. The division Bench ruled that the Chief Justice had no authority to bifurcate the territory of the high court and held that the litigants could file petitions either before circuit Benches or the principal Bench according to their convenience. The judgment paved the way for litigants in North Karnataka to approach the principal Bench directly, which they could not do earlier. The second circular, struck down by the Bench of Kumar and Gowda, was also issued on December 29, 2008. The circular had given the CJ the power to hear cases filed by employees against administrative decisions taken by the CJ himself. “The Chief Justice wants to be a judge in his own case where he is a party. No one can at the same time be a suitor and a judge”, the Bench said. Dinakaran has been refrained from sitting on the Bench after land-grabbing allegations surfaced against him.
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Dubey murder case to life imprisonment. Dubey, a project engineer in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) working for the Golden Quadrilateral Highway project in Bihar, was gunned down on November 27, 2003, at Gaya while he was going to his home from the railway station on a rickshaw.
New Delhi, March 27
Former Punjab Governor and ex-Chief Minister of West Bengal Siddhartha Shankar Ray was today taken to a private hospital with complaints of kidney-related complications in south Kolkata today. Three days ago, he had a fall from bed sustaining a backbone injury.
