The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	RBI fines Citibank Rs 25 lakh in Gurgaon branch fraud case Mumbai, July 4 The Reserve Bank today imposed a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on US-based Citibank for not following account opening and anti-money laundering norms at its Gurgaon branch, which witnessed a fraud of Rs 461 crore last year. “The failure in following the Know-Your Customer (KYC)/ Anti-Money Laundering (AML) guidelines while opening accounts led to the perpetration of a fraud at its Gurgaon branch,” the central bank said. Several depositors and high-networth individuals (HNIs) were duped in the Rs 460.91 crore fraud, engineered by a Citibank’s Global Wealth Manager Shivraj Puri who was working at Gurgaon branch of the bank. Following investigations, the RBI came to the conclusion "that the violations (at Gurgoan branch of Citibank) were substantiated and warranted imposition of the penalty". No immediate comments could be obtained from Citibank. The RBI had earlier issued a show cause notice to the bank in April and heard the bank officals on the issue last month. The Haryana police has filed chargesheet against the fraud accused and capital market regulator Sebi too probed the matter as the fraud money was invested in the stock market. As per a SEBI report, the mastermind of Citibank fraud Shivraj Puri took an exposure of whopping Rs 1.13 lakh crore in the equity market using Rs 236 crore of 51 high networth individuals and corporates and lost everything following the decline in the stock markets. The government had earlier said the fraud in the Gurgaon branch was going on since September 2009, but major transactions only took place between May 2010 and November 2010. Citibank's manager Puri perpetrated the fraud by mobilising funds worth Rs 460.91 crore in an unauthorised manner from Net High worth Individual (NHI) customers and certain companies for the purpose of investing in stock market. Puri fabricated a circular of the SEBI to lure people into investing into accounts held by his accomplices Premnath, Shiela Premnath and Deeksha Puri. After discovering the fraud, the Citibank on December 5, 2010, filed a complaint with the Gurgaon police, which is investigating the case.— PTI A CASE HISTORY OF THE SHIVRAJ PURI SCAM n Citibank’s Global Wealth Manager Shivraj Puri (in pix) took an exposure of Rs 1.13 lakh crore in the equity market using Rs 236 crore of 51 high networth individuals and corporates. He lost everything following decline in stock markets. n Puri fabricated a circular of the SEBI to lure people into investing into accounts held by his accomplices Premnath, Shiela Premnath and Deeksha Puri. n The government had earlier said the fraud in the Gurgaon branch was going on since September 2009, but major transactions only took place between May 2010 and November 2010. n The scam came to light after the bank looked into a query from a customer at Citibank's Nehru Place branch about its scheme offering high returns.
	FDI inflows show steep rise in May Second-highest equity inflow in 11 years at $4.6 bn Sanjeev Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, July 4 India saw the second-highest FDI equity inflows of $4.6 billion over 11 years for May this year. More monthly inflows than May were last seen in April 2000. However, with FDI inflows slowing in the last year, concerns persist about the investment climate in India. So, it remains to be seen if the upswing seen in May sustains or it is just a blip. The May figures are an increase of nearly 111% over the FDI equity inflows of $ 2.2 billion received in the same month last year and also the highest inflow in the month of May over 11 years. The Commerce Ministry feels that the recent trend of dip in FDI inflows appears to have been reversed in the current financial year, where a significant upward trend in the FDI inflows is evident. The total FDI equity inflows, in the first two months of the current financial year (i.e. April and May, 2011), are $7.785 billion, representing an increase of around 77% over the FDI equity inflows of $ 4.392 billion for the corresponding period last year. It says that recent investments are an indicator of this positive trend. For example, the proposed tie-up between BP and Reliance, with a likely FDI of over $ 7 billion, could possibly be the single largest FDI into any emerging market. Similarly, Vodafone's purchase of Essar's stake, at around $ 5 billion, is also an indicator of continuing investor confidence. The approvals given to POSCO and to the Cairn-Vedanta acquisition (a deal of around $8-9 billion) are also likely to increase FDI this year.
	Sibal to hear telecom users’ grievances today New Delhi, July 4 Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal will hold the first round table with consumer user groups to look into their grievances in issues like pesky calls, hidden costs in tariffs and ineffective redressal system, among others. “I shall be holding a round table with consumers on July 5 ... This is the first ever round table to interact with consumers. I want to know from them what their problems are,” Sibal told PTI. Asked why the Telecom Regulatory authority was unable to address the menace of pesky calls and SMSes, the Minister said, “I do not know, that's something we need to discuss. Though TRAI is holding discussions separately with consumers, but I think as a Minister I want to directly interact with the consumers to know what they want and I intend to resolve those concerns.” TRAI has issued two draft regulations on protecting consumer interest and redressal of complaints. The drafts focus on issues like effective grievance redressal system, review of consumer centric quality of service parameters, metering and billing audit and providing information to prepaid consumers, among others. The two draft regulations — ‘Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2011’ and ‘Telecom Consumers Complaint Redressal Regulations, 2011’ — have been placed on TRAI’s website.— PTI TRAI seeks to regulate value-added services Tribune News Service New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today issued directives to service providers on the procedure for providing Value-Added-Services (VAS) to users, which would go a long way in regulating the services being forced upon the consumers by the operators. TRAI said, “The service provider shall obtain confirmation from the consumer through SMS or e-mail or Fax or in writing within twenty four hours of activation of the VAS. He should charge the consumer only if the confirmation is received from him for such value-added service and shall discontinue if no confirmation is received.”
	MTNL seeks to raise Rs 1500 crore New Delhi, July 4 The State-run MTNL has invited expression of interest (EoI) from banks for providing long-term loans of Rs 1,500 crore to repay its debts and meet operational expenses. "The loss-making PSU has called for an EoI from public/private banks for providing an offer for long-term loans (secured) of Rs 1,500 crore with a floating interest rate for a tenure of seven years," MTNL said in a statement. The loan will be raised in tranches as per the requirement within the discretion of the MTNL without any penalty and interest to be calculated for such tranches from the date of raised, it added. "... floating interest rate for a tenure of seven years with a moratorium period of 3 years on principal repayment with interest payment on monthly basis followed by repayment of loan quarterly in the ballooning pattern," the company said. The opening date of sale of tender document is from July 4 and the closing date and time of sale of tender document is July 11, 2011.— TNS
	Idea-Spice merger: HC imposes Rs 1 cr penalty on Idea New Delhi, July 4 In a setback to Aditya Birla group firm Idea Cellular, the Delhi High Court today said the six licences of Spice Communications would not be transferred to Idea, which acquired it in 2008, as the company did not comply with the licence and merger guidelines. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 1 crore for not giving the correct information to the court. The court said Idea had not put the rejection letters by DoT on merger of licence and did not place on record relevant documents. “...Notwithstanding anything stated in the sanctioned scheme and in the order dated February 5, 2010, the 6 overlapping licences of Spice would not stand transferred or vested with Idea till prior permission of DoT is obtained,” said the judge.— PTI
	Digital signatures mandatory for specific income tax payees Manav Mander Tribune News Service Ludhiana, July 4 The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has asked certain categories of tax payers to furnish the return electronically under digital signatures. The condition has created confusion among income tax payees. People are looking for authorised agents to get the digital signatures while others are still unaware about the amendment. According to the notification, any partnership firm which furnishes the return in Form ITR-5 or an individual or Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) who furnish the return in Form ITR-4 and to whom provisions of section 44AB are applicable, shall furnish the return for financial year 2011-12 and subsequent assessment years electronically under digital signature. A senior official from the Income Tax department said the new amendment will definitely help in making the system transparent and will save time of the income tax payee and department as well. “Initially a tax payee had to send an acknowledgement slip to the department. Since the income tax payee will be filing the income tax return with digital signatures there will be no need of sending the acknowledgement slip by signing it,” he said. “Income tax payees coming to file their returns are unaware about the condition of digital signatures. It will definitely lead to lot of time consumption and now they will have to get their signature in a digital form. There are few authorized companies which will issue the digital signatures after fulfilling some pre-requisites," said Jatinder Khurana, a lawyer. What is digital signature? A digital signature (not to be confused with a digital certificate) is an electronic signature that can be used to authenticate the identity of the sender of a message or the signer of a document, and possibly to ensure that the original content of the message or document that has been sent is unchanged. Digital signatures are easily transportable, cannot be imitated by someone else, and can be automatically time-stamped. Few authorised companies will issue these.
	Sugar pricing decontrol on government radar Shiv Kumar Tribune News Service Mumbai, July 4 Maharashtra’s politicians who control the state's sugar co-operatives are pushing for complete decontrol of the sector. Addressing the sugar industry at an event over the weekend, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar indicated that the next step of reforms would cover the agriculture sector including full decontrol of the sugar industry. "The issue of sugar control will be taken up in the next 8-10 days. We have started the.... process on this and a pragmatic decision is expected soon," Pawar told the gathering in Pune. Pawar's statement was welcomed by the Indian Sugar Mills Association which has been pressing for a complete decontrol of the sugar industry for the past several years. ISMA officials said its members are planning to put together a strategy to push for complete sugar decontrol with the government. "We think the first step would be removal of the levy quota obligation," says ISMA director general Abinash Verma. Should sugar be decontrolled, the government will cease to play a role in regulating sugar prices. This step is welcomed by Maharashtra's sugar barons who are obliged to sell the sweetener at pre-determined prices. The sugar lobby in the state scored a major victory when the central government recently allowed 5 lakh tonnes of sugar to be exported. The state's co-operatives expect the export quota to be increased by a similar number in the coming weeks as the country is heading for a bumper output.
	Mandatory barcoding of medicines deferred Our Corrospondent Solan, July 4 Providing relief to pharmaceutical exporters the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has deferred its proposal to implement barcoding on export consignment from July 1 by issuing a fresh notification. As per the latest notification the date for implementing this system has been deferred to October 1 and will be done in a phased manner. The enforcement of the system will make trace and track technology compulsory for tertiary level packaging with effect from October 1, 2011 while for secondary level packaging it will be implemented from January 1, 2012. It will be enforced for primary level packaging from July 1, 2012. — PTI