Thursday, November 17, 2011

71 special CBI courts were sanctioned by the Centre across teh country to deal speccially with graft cases.


The Supreme Court suggested that could explain the lack of action. "The majority of cases taken up by special courts involves cases of public servants. The Prime Minister's letter is thrown into teh dustbin. It is an unfortunate scenario that only under the threat of contempt, they (states) take decisions", said a two judge bench hearing the case.
They added that it is the duty of Chief Secretaries in states to take administrative decisions but they do not take decisions on such important issues. 

Monday, November 14, 2011

Order of inquiry into Chandrababu Naidu's assets

The Andhra Pradesh high court today asked the CBI and Enforcement Directorate to conduct an investigation into the assets of former chief minister and Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu.

A bench comprising of justice Ghulam Mohammed and justice Nooti Ramamohan Rao gave these
orders on a petition filed on October 17 by YSR Congress honorary President and Pulivendula MLA Y S Vijaya.

Vijaya, widow of late chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, filed the petition seeking a probe by the CBI and the ED against Naidu on various counts.

"Several individuals have conspired with Chandrababu Naidu to subvert the system by causing pecuniary advantage to themselves and draining the state's exchequer. Offences of cheating, criminal breach of trust, corruption, money laundering and several others are made out against them," Vijaya prayed in the petition.

"It is in the greatest public interest that Naidu and the other private respondents be investigated at the earliest by both the CBI and the ED, as the offences are of a national and international nature, and which have ramifications across the nation," the petition said.

The court directed CBI, ED and SEBI to complete the investigation and submit reports independently within three months.

Friday, November 11, 2011

SC notice to Gujarat on IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's plea for nixing FIR

The Supreme Court on Friday sought Gujarat government's response on suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's plea for quashing a criminal case lodged against him for allegedly hacking the state's additional advocate general Tushar Mehta's email account.

Bhatt, who is at loggerheads with Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, sought quashing of the first information report in the case against him, refuting all the allegations levelled in it and asserting that the state was harassing him.

A bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai issued notice to the Gujarat government on Bhatt's plea, seeking its response by the next date of hearing.

Bhatt also made an alternative plea for the transfer of the case to the CBI for an independent probe into it.

The state police had filed an FIR against Bhatt on August 5 on a complaint by Mehta alleging that Bhatt had hacked his email account and had passed on the information to others.

"These communications contain my personal, official, and legal correspondences which were not only unauthorisedly seen by Bhatt but also shared with others for ulterior motive, which, apart from being a criminal offence, violates my right of privacy," Mehta had said in his complaint.

The Gujarat Police had later transferred the case to the cyber cell of its crime branch.

No govt jobs for those with criminal record


A person facing criminal cases cannot be considered suitable for appointment in government service unless acquitted of the charges, the Supreme Court has held.

Quashing the appointment of constable SK Nazrul Islam, the apex court said, "Surely, the authorities entrusted with the responsibility of appointing constables were under duty to verify the antecedents of a candidate to find out whether he is suitable for the post of constable.

"And so long as the candidate has not been acquitted in the criminal case of the charges he cannot possibly be held to be suitable for appointment to the post of constable.

A Bench of justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik passed the judgement while upholding the West Bengal government's appeal challenging the high court's direction to appoint Islam despite the fact that he was facing criminal charges.

Islam who was provisionally recruited in 2007 but during verification, it came to light that he was on bail and facing criminal charges under several IPC sections. The government soon terminated his appointment.

He then approached the Administrative Tribunal which dismissed his plea, following which he appealed in the high court. The court, however, directed his appointment subject to the final outcome of the criminal trial pending against him. The state appealed in the apex court.

Upholding the appeal, the Bench said, "We fail to appreciate how when a criminal case under IPC sections 148, 323, 380, 427 against the respondent was pending in the court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Uluberia, Howrah, any mandamus could have been issued by the high court to the authorities to appoint the respondent as a constable."
Accordingly it quashed the high court order.

Go after mining company owners


The Supreme Court today asked the CBI to go after owners of the companies involved in illegal mining in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh instead of restricting its investigation to their employees.

A bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia, after going through the CBI status report submitted before it, asked the probe agency to submit a more comprehensive report and queried about the owners of Associated Mining Company (AMC) and Deccan Mining Syndicate (DMS) who are allegedly involved in illegally routed their minerals through Obulapuram in Andhra Pradesh.

In the last hearing the court had asked the investigating agency to probe the "linkage" between mining activities in Karnataka's Bellary district and Ananthpur in Andhra Pradesh allegedly involving the Reddy brothers.

The court had said that CBI investigation was needed as it was prima facie satisfied with the materials placed before it that the iron ore extracted by AMC and DMS, was being illegally routed through Obulapuram in Andhra Pradesh.

AMC is owned by BJP leader and former Karnataka tourism minister Janardhana Reddy, and his wife and DMS by another mining baron S M Jain.

Both the companies, according to the report of the apex court-appointed Central Empowered Committee, were involved in illegal mining in the lease area of 10.12 hectares in the village Jaisingapur village and there were irregularities in renewal of lease.