New Delhi, September 13
The working of country’s top audit body, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) came in for strong criticism from the government today as Law Minister Veerappa Moily said that the timely intervention of the organisation could have prevented many scams and scandals.

Moily, who was addressing the fifth annual convention of Central Information Commission (CIC) here, also slammed former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha for calling every third Indian utterly corrupt.

Moily said, "Scandals and scams are known even when they are being planned and executed. If audit draws attention to them forthwith in a well published manner, such scandals can be halted mid-stride. Postmortems are good but they can be conducted only when a patient is dead".

The Law Minister while being critical of the top audit body categorically stated that it has not fulfilled its obligations.

He said the institution of Comptroller and Auditor General, a Constitutional body itself designed to be a bulwark against omission and commissions of the Executive under the supervision of the Legislature has not fulfilled for what it was conceptualised by the Constitution makers.

Moily also took the opportunity to criticise bureaucrats who retire from service and make "discrediting" remarks about the country when they were abroad.

Without naming former Chief Vigilance Commissioner Pratyush Sinha, he said, "When few top officials who could have made a difference in office... having failed to do so, become saints after retirement. When I was abroad recently, I came across the comments of a retired bureaucrat who said in a media interview that every third Indian is corrupt".

Terming such remarks as "travesty of truth", Moily, without naming the senior retired official, said, "No one has the right to discredit our nation".

"You cannot hurt national pride saying things that are not at all true," Moily said. "I don't want to name any one, he is a senior official, anyone who says such things is wrong," he said.

Sinha, who retired as India's Central Vigilance Commissioner last week, was reported to have said that the worst part of his "thankless job" was observing how corruption had increased as people became more materialistic.

"There would be around 30 percent who would be utterly corrupt. But the rest are people who are on the borderline," he had said in an interview to a newspaper last week.

Meanwhile Moily urged Department of Personnel and Training authorities to look into such "frustrated statements" made by the former civil servant.

Incidentally, the appointment of PJ Thomas as the new chief vigilance commissioner has also come under a cloud with allegations being made that he had bagged the post at the behest of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Expressing concern over the killing of RTI activists across the country, he said such acts should be dealt with "iron hands".

Moily said, "The RTI should not become the casualty of corrupt bureaucrats and others. It is quite disturbing to hear the threat administered to RTI activists." 

Guwahati, September 13
Thousands of persons in several localities in the heart of Assam’s capital city here are reeling under flood water since last Saturday’s heavy downpour that have rendered hollow the claims of numerous storm water drainage systems implemented by the authorities.

Country boats and inflatable boats were used by local people to evacuate marooned people from various city localities even as the district administration has remained a mute spectator to the people’s plight. Ground floors of all the houses in city’s several localities have been submerged for the past three days.

A Division Bench of Gauhati High Court comprising Chief Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice U B Saha today directed the Assam Government to file an affidavit within two weeks giving detailed accounts of steps being taken by it to safeguard the citizens of Guwahati from water-logging.

The directive was issued during the hearing of a PIL filed by one Lakshmi Talukdar and others demanding court intervention seeking respite from the problem of water-logging and flashfloods every rainy season.

Meanwhile, the mighty Brahmaputra that flows from East to West through Assam valley is flowing over the red mark throughout the valley, inundating hundreds of villages, affecting over 1.5 lakh persons.

New Delhi, September 13
The Supreme Court today reserved its verdict on Congress leader Sajjan Kumar’s plea for quashing the charges framed by the trial court in 1984 riots case.

A Bench comprising Justices P Sathasivam and Anil R Dave passed the order after hearing arguments by counsel for all three parties - Sajjan, the CBI and the victims-cum-complainants. The judgment is likely within a fortnight as the Bench had clarified that it was conscious of the urgency as it had stayed the trial on August 13.

Senior counsel UU Lalit, appearing for Sajjan, said the CBI had relied upon the evidence selectively, choosing the last four statements of 69-year-old Jagdish Kaur, whose husband, a 19-year-old son and three cousins, were killed by a rioting mob in Delhi’s Cantonment area following the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The CBI could choose the witnesses it wanted to rely upon, but once this was done it could not ignore any of the statements made by such witnesses.

The CBI had totally ignored the statements of Jagdish Kaur made to the inquiry commissions of Justice Ranganath Misra Commission and Jain Banerjee in which she had not mentioned the name of Sajjan. Further, the government’s Action Taken Report (ATR) submitted to Parliament in August 2005 had specifically mentioned that the Delhi police did not proceed against Sajjan as there was no evidence.

Senior counsel Dushyant Dave, appearing for the victims along with another senior advocate HS Phoolka, said the riots cases could not be treated like any other case. This was an extraordinary case, which put to test the very rule of law and the foundations of democracy and the Constitution, which guaranteed right to life. There was complete negation of law for five days until November 5, 1984, he said.

Dave said Jagdish Kaur named Sajjan immediately after a proper atmosphere was ensured.

While rejecting Sajjan’s plea on July 19, the Delhi High Court was forced to go into the merits of the case as his counsel had extensively argued on these aspects, Dave said. The apex court, however, said it would assess whether the HC’s comments was prejudicial to any of the parties and would do the needful.

Additional Sessions Judge Sunita Gupta framed charges against Sajjan on May 18.

Raipur/Jhargram/Ranchi, September 13
A two-day bandh called by Maoists in six states began on a violent note today with the killing of two policemen in Chhattisgarh, five CPM supporters in West Bengal and a chowkidar in Jharkhand.

In Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, Maoists attacked Bhejji police station and shot dead two policemen, who were preparing to go out on a patrol, after an exchange of fire this morning, police officials said.

In West Bengal’s West Midnapore district, Maoists attacked Dompara area in Nachupatina village close to the Orissa border and dragged out five Marxist supporters, including four of a family, from their houses and assaulted them before shooting them dead last night, they said.

In Jharkhand’s Garhwa district, Maoists dragged out chowkidar Rajeshar Paswan with his hands tied before shooting him dead in Panchadumar village, police said.

A note recovered near the body claimed Paswan was a stooge of the police. Last night, Maoists shot dead a man at Panchadumar village in the same district, they said.

The ultras also blew up a stretch of railway track near Karmavad railway station in Giridih district in the wee hours which also damaged the wheels of a goods train, Divisional Railway Manager, (Dhanbad Railway Division) A Upadhaya said in Ranchi.

The bandh has been called in West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh besides some districts of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. — PTI

Mumbai/Lucknow, September 13
Four more state Congress units today left it to party president Sonia Gandhi to choose its chiefs with those in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Goa authorising her to take the decision.

Subhash Shirodkar of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee said the decision to let Sonia chose the state unit president was taken to avoid groupism, discontent and differences in the party.

In Mumbai, a one-line resolution authorising Sonia to elect the new Maharashtra and Mumbai unit Congress chiefs was passed at a meeting of the newly elected district Congress committee presidents and PCC delegates.

State Congress leaders in MP and Goa too authorised Sonia to choose their next president and other office-bearers. While Congress leaders in Madhya Pradesh passed the resolution today, those in Goa passed it yesterday. — PTI

New Delhi, September 13
The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) today quashed appointment of 25 news anchors and reporters in state-run public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, saying “irregularities” were committed to favour some candidates to get into Doordarshan News.

The Tribunal headed by chairman VK Bali cancelled the appointments on the ground that rules for appointments were changed arbitrarily at the last moment at interview stage to pave the way for some candidates who did not perform well in the written test.

The Tribunal noted that the number of journalists to be called for interview was increased from 30 to 35 to accommodate Yashvi Tirath (daughter of Union minister Krishna Tirath) who ranked 33 in the written exam.

“The Prasar Bharati changed the weightage fixed for the interview from 25 per cent to 33 per cent on the eve of the interview, when the merit of the candidates on the basis of the three preceding tests was known. Not only this, the number of candidates to be called for interview was also increased from 30 to 35 for Grade III.”

“Yashvi Tirath, for example, was 33rd in the merit before interview. She was awarded 90 marks in the interview. This is a glaring example of arbitrariness obviously to favour her,” the Tribunal said.

The Tribunal said another candidate Anita Kalra Kalha was arbitrarily recommended when she had not applied for it and had not appeared in the audition test for the same.

“Marking in the interview also seems to be arbitrary as some of the candidates seen to be very high on the merit list before the interview have completely floundered on the rocks of interview. The selected candidates have marks in the range of 85 to 90 in the interview, whereas the candidates who were rejected are trailing far behind though they had done well in other tests,” the Tribunal said. — PTI 

New Delhi, September 13
Pulling up the CBI for registering a case against “unknown officials” in the telecom scam case, the Supreme Court today issued notice to the agency and the Telecom minister A Raja on a bunch of petitions alleging a loss of Rs 70,000 crore to the government in the allocation of 2G spectrum.

The court wanted to know whether the CBI was carrying out the investigation without knowing the officials it was questioning.

“Simply in terms of the scale of money that has been swindled, it is easily the biggest scam that this country has every seen,” a PIL filed jointly by the Centre for PIL (CPIL), an NGO (Telecom Watchdog) and others said.

Raja and senior officials of the Telecom Department and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, corporate entities and middlemen were involved in the scam, the petition said. The DoT under Raja had given away “scarce” national resources (spectrum) at “throw away prices” to private companies. In January 2008, the DoT had awarded 122 Universal Access Service (UAS) licences with spectrum on first-come-first-served basis at the rate of Rs 1,658.57 crore per pan-India UAS licence. This was the price decided in the auction in 2001 and the rate had gone up manifold during the seven years.

Mumbai, September 13
The Army's Deolali camp, Maharashtra Police Academy and Police Commissionerate in Nashik were on the hit-list of arrested LeT terror suspect Shaikh Lalbaba Mohammed Hussain, Maharashtra ATS said today.

Shaikh alias Bilal, arrested for allegedly preparing for terror strikes in Maharashtra, was staying in Nashik with two fake identities and conducted recce of these three locations since May on instructions of his aide Mirza Himayat Baig, an senior ATS official said.

The fake identities assumed by 27-year-old Bilal were Amin Manik Parekh and Sutar Iqbal. He has been arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act last week from Nashik.

Baig too has been arrested for his alleged role in Pune's German Bakery bomb blast.

During his stay in Nashik, Bilal was working as CNC lathe machine operator in Satpur industrial area and used to work in shifts, the official said.

“Whenever Bilal had leisure time, he visited these places to get details as what is the area of the targets, how many exit and entry points they have etc,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Photographs of these targets were also seized from them, he added.

Sources further said Baig had received Rs 50,000 from Mohsin Choudhary, an alleged Indian Mujahideen member, sometime after the February 13 Pune bomb blast.

According to the ATS, Bilal had visited LeT camps in Pakistan between January 2008 and early 2010 where he received advanced training in use of sophisticated weapons and making bombs. He had sneaked into India thrice during the period through the Bangladesh and Nepal borders.

In January, Baig along with Mohsin and Mohammad Ahmed Zarar Siddibappa alias Yasin, another alleged IM member, had held a conspiracy meeting at his Gold Internet Cafe in Udgir in Latur district to select their targets and German Bakery was chosen as it was frequented by foreigners. — PTI 

Bangalore, September 13
Citing security interests, a local court today dismissed the bail plea of PDP leader Abdul Nasser Madani - an accused in the 2008 Bangalore serial blast case.In its order, the fast track court said the material produced by prosecution so far revealed that there was a prima facie case against Madani.

Since investigation was under progress and allegations against Madani came under the purview of the Unlawful Activities Act, the bail cannot be granted, Judge Shrikant Watawati said in his over 30-page order.

Speaking to reporters, counsel for Madani P Usman termed the order “lopsided”.

“The arguments put forth by me have not been accepted and the order is based totally on the case made out by the prosecution,” he said. — PTI