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.

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.

SC: Officers involved in fake encounters should be hanged

Police personnel involved in fake encounters should be awarded the death sentence and hanged, the Supreme Court has said.

A Bench of justices Markandeya Katju and C K Prasad said police personnel as custodians of law are expected to protect people and not eliminate them as contract killers.

“Fake encounter killings by cops are nothing but cold-blooded brutal murder which should be treated as the rarest of rare offence and police personnel responsible for it should be awarded the death sentence. They should be hanged,” Justice Katju, heading the Bench, said.

The court observed this while directing the surrender of two senior Rajasthan IPS officers (Additional DGP Arvind Jain and S P Arshad) allegedly involved in the fake encounter of an alleged gangster, Dara Singh, by the Special Operations Group of Rajasthan Police on October 23, 2006.

The Bench said if the accused police officers fail to surrender, they should be arrested by the CBI which is investigating the case.

“The same parameters will apply and the law shall take its own course,” Justice Katju observed when counsel for Singh's widow Sushila Devi said one of the accused Rajender Rathore, a former minister, was also absconding.

“...If crimes are committed by ordinary people, ordinary punishment should be given but if the offence is committed by policemen, much harsher punishment should be given to them because they do an act totally contrary to their duties.”

The apex court had in April last year directed a CBI probe on an application moved by Sushila Devi accusing the Rajasthan Police of abducting her husband, killing him in cold blooded manner and passing it off as an encounter.

According to the Rajasthan government, Dara Singh was a proclaimed offender carrying a reward of Rs 25,000 on his head and was involved in criminal activities.

In May, in another case of alleged fake encounter of a businessmen by the Maharashtra Police, the apex court said actions by police cannot be treated as ordinary incidents and exemplary punishment should be meted out to the accused.

“This is a very serious case and cannot be treated like an ordinary case. The accused who are policemen are supposed to uphold the law but the allegation against them is that they functioned as contract killers,” it said.

According to the court, it would not brook any excuse from policemen that they were acting at the behest of their superior officers.

“We warn policemen that they will not be excused for committing murder in the name of an 'encounter' on the pretext that they were carrying out orders of their superior officers or politicians, however high. In the Nuremberg trials, the Nazi war criminals took the plea that 'orders are orders' but nevertheless they were hanged,” the Bench had said.

Court slapped Rs. 50 lakh fine on frivolous petitioner, orders CBI probe.

CBI to probe YSR helicopter crash

Uttarkhand Encounter: Murder case against policemen

In New Delhi, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) demanded a CBI probe into the incident saying, "truth should come out expeditiously". Ranbir's autopsy report revealed he was shot at close range and may have been tortured.

Kerala top cop gets 6-month term in assault case

January 12, 2009 22:58 IST
An additional director general of police in Kerala [Images] was on Monday sentenced to six months' simple imprisonment by a court in Kochi in connection with a case of assault on the editor of a Malayalam eveninger from Kannur in 1988.

Besides K G Premshankar, who is now the additional director general of police (Protection of Civil Rights) Thiruvananthapuram, three other policemen were also sentenced to six months' simple imprisonment by Ernakulam Chief Judicial Magistrate P D Soman in the case, investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation. They are former Kannur circle inspector P Jayaraj, former Mattanur sub inspector R V Kunhiraman and former Kannur sub-inspector K Abdul Gaffoor.

K G Premshankar was the superintendent of police of Kannur when the incident occurred.

The CJM acquitted eight other policemen in the case. He imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 each on all the four police personnel convicted.

The case relates to the assault of Maniyeri Madhavan, Editor of Sudhinam by the policemen on February 12, 1988, after some reports were published against them.

Following the direction of Supreme court, the CBI had investigated the case. Earlier the local police and the crime branch had investigated the case.

Since Madhavan had passed away a few years ago, the CJM court directed that the fine amount be handed over to his legal heirs.