by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Satyendra Jain
New Delhi : The CBI on Wednesday raided the residence of Delhi Health and Power Minister Satyendra Jain over alleged violation of norms in hiring of a creative team in the Public Works Department (PWD) and registered a case.
The case has been registered against Jain, S.K. Srivastava, the then Engineer-in-Chief in PWD and others, a CBI official told IANS.
Searches are underway at four-to-five locations in Delhi, including residences of PWD officials and others.
In 2017, the Central Bureau of Investigation had initiated a preliminary probe related to the hiring of 24 architects in the PWD’s creative team for various projects, including Mohalla clinics.
“CBI raids my house for hiring creative team by PWD. Professionals were hired for different projects. All were forced to leave by the CBI,” Jain said in a tweet.
Reacting to the raids on Jain’s house, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted: “What does Prime Minister Narendra Modi want?” His deputy Manish Sisodia quoted a report that said the NITI Aayog had favoured the creative team.
“The only job left with the CBI, Delhi Police, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax department is to stop the works done by the AAP in Delhi.”
“Our crime is that we are working to make the national capital a better place and improve the health and education here. All this is done to harass us,” he added.
“The Aam Aadmi Party is not going to stop with these practice,” he said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ahmedabad : A special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court hearing the 2004 Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case on Wednesday concluded hearing in the discharge plea by former top cop of Gujarat Police N.K. Amin.
The special court had started hearing the Amin’s discharge plea last Saturday.
Amin, presenting his final submission before the court of special judge J.K. Pandya, said that the testimonies of the witnesses produced by the CBI in the case were “not reliable”, as some of them were earlier made accused in the case.
Maintaining that he did not fire from his gun, Amin said that Satish Verma, the Gujarat cadre IPS, who assisted the CBI in the investigation, had tampered with the evidence.
Amin was appearing in the court as party in person.
The CBI, has opposed the discharge pleas by Amin as well as from former top cop of Gujarat and retired DIG D.G. Vanzara.
Opposing the Amin’s plea, the CBI stated that it had ample proof to corroborate his presence at the spot of encounter.
The CBI charge-sheet states that Amin had fired five rounds from his 9mm pistol. It also stated in the court that there were witnesses who had seen Amin at the encounter site and that they also had forensic evidence that he had fired from his gun.
But Amin, now a practising lawyer after his retirement, claimed in his plea that he was not a part of the team involved in the shooting and that his involvement was not supported by with any forensic evidence.
On Wednesday, Amin once again equated his discharge plea with that of former in-charge DGP P.P. Pandey and sought parity with him, who was accused in the case but had his discharge petition allowed by the same court.
In June 2004, Mumbai-based 19-year-old Ishrat Jahan and three others — her friend Javed alias Pranesh, along with two Pakistani nationals Zeeshan Johar and Amzad Ali Rana — were gunned down by a team of Vanzara’s men in an encounter in Ahmedabad in 2004.
It was claimed that Ishrat and her friends were terrorists who were in the state with an intent and plot to kill then Chief Minister and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The court is expected to announce its decision on the discharge plea next month.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ranchi : A Special CBI court here on Wednesday handed jail terms ranging from three-and-a-half years to 14 years to 37 persons convicted in the fodder scam related to the fraudulent withdrawals from the Dumka treasury in the then undivided Bihar, an official said.
These convicts have been ordered to pay fines totalling Rs 29 crore.
On April 9, Special CBI Judge Shivapal Singh had convicted these 37 persons and acquitted five others.
Then Animal Husbandry Department’s Regional Director O.P. Diwakar was sentenced to a cumulative jail term of 14 years. He was given a seven-year jail term for conspiracy and another seven years under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Three convicts, former department employees, were sentenced to seven years each in jail and a Rs 1 crore fine each.
The remaining 33 convicts were handed out jail terms of three-and-a-half years and Rs 50 lakh fine each.
The case (number RC 45A/96) related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 34.91 crore from the Dumka treasury during 1991-92 and 1995-96.
This is the 51st fodder scam case in which the CBI court has delivered a judgment.
In this case, the accused were suppliers and officials of the Animal Husbandry Department. No politician was an accused.
The FIR was lodged against 72 people in 1996 and charges were framed finally against 60 accused in 2004. Fourteen accused died during trial, two admitted to their crime and two are absconding.
The fodder scam came to light in 1996 after an FIR was lodged against then undivided Bihar’s Chief Minister Lalu Prasad.
He has been convicted in four cases and is in jail. He was awarded 14 years’ imprisonment on March 23. He is now admitted to AIIMS, New Delhi.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ranchi : Former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad will be jailed for 14 years in the fourth fodder scam case he has been convicted in, with a special CBI court here on Saturday sentencing him to seven years each in two cases under it, and ordering the sentences run consecutively.
Pronouncing the sentence, CBI judge Shivpal Singh sentenced the Rashtriya Janatya Dal (RJD) supremo to seven years rigorous imprisonment on the various sections of the Indian Penal Code he has been charged under and levied a fine of Rs 30 lakh, which if unpaid, would entail a further year’s simple imprisonment.
Lalu Prasad was sentenced to a similar sentence and fine on the charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
“The sentences run in the consecutive way, not concurrently,” says the judgment of the special court.
The court on March 19 convicted Lalu Prasad in the fourth fodder scam case but acquitted another former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra.
Both Lalu Prasad and Mishra are facing five cases each in the fodder scam in Ranchi.
There were 31 accused in this case, of which 19 were convicted and 12 acquitted.
Lalu Prasad was convicted in the first fodder scam case in 2013 and awarded five years in jail.
He was convicted by a special CBI court in the second case on December 23, 2017, and awarded three and half years’ imprisonment on January 6.
He was convicted in the third case on January 24, related to fraudulent withdrawals from the Chaibasa treasury, and got a five-year jail term.
The multi-million-rupee fodder scam surfaced in the 1990s when Lalu Prasad was Chief Minister of undivided Bihar. The probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation on the Patna High Court’s order.
The bulk of the cases were transferred to Ranchi after Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Banking, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, News, Politics
CBI Headquarters
Hyderabad : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked 41 persons including three officials of the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) for cheating the bank to the tune of Rs 539 crore in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The federal agency registered two separate cases relating to large-scale frauds in IDBI branches in the two states in sanctioning pisciculture loans.
In the first case, 31 persons including IDBI’s General Manager Battu Rama Rao and former Chief General Manager R. Damodaran, 22 aggregators and bank panel valuers were booked for cheating the bank to the tune of Rs 445.32 crores. Rama Rao has also been removed from the service.
The central agency booked the accused on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, criminal misconduct and misappropriation.
The action came after a complaint by IDBI official in Hyderabad that about 220 borrowers, consisting of 22 aggregators, conspired with IDBI bank officials at its Basheerbagh (Hyderabad) and Siripuram (Visakhapatnam) branches, along with bank panel valuers, and availed Kisan Credit Card (KCC) and pisciculture loans through 220 loan accounts from different branches of the bank aggregating Rs 198.28 crore
The loans, which were availed on the basis of fake documents and overvalued collateral property, subsequently become NPA. The outstanding amount as on September 2017 stood at Rs 445.32.
It was found that pisciculture or no other fish farming activity was ever taken up in the said lands in East and West Godavari and Krishna districts of Andhra Pradesh and Adilabad district in Telangana and that sanctioned loans were misappropriated.
Bank panel valuers Lt. Col. B.K. Sahoo, Aakar Consulting Engineers, R.A. Sharma, M.V. Srinivasulu, Subha Syndicate, Srinivasa Rau and Somasekhara Rao were among those booked.
In the second case, the CBI booked a IDBI official and nine others for defrauding the bank to the tune of Rs 93.73 crore.
Chandrasekhar Harish Chennapagari, who was working as Assistant General Manager at Guntur branch of IDBI, allegedly abused his official position to process and sanction 142 pisciculture loans from 2010 to 2012. He has been removed from service by the IDBI.
Investigations revealed that the loans were sanctioned on the basis of fake documents. The accused include a bank panel valuer, a bank panel advocate, aggregators and individual borrowers.
—IANS
