Two-G (2G) Spectrum Scam Tapes and follow-up

[Aditya_V]

2G JPC: Will SP, BSP bail UPA out this time?

Why this a question, they have always voted for UPA. All thier fighting is to make a C****** of the UP public. Its a secret partnership.

[RamaY]

JPC report contradicts Supreme Court findings in 2G scam

The court had ealier castigated TRAI on the same grounds that the JPC uses to defend the UPA

The controversial JPC report, which is expected to lead to a major confrontation in the Parliament next week, makes several observations that contradict the Supreme Court’s orders and findings relating to the 2G scam.

The report absolves Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of any wrongdoing, while simultaneously attempting to destroy the Comptroller and Auditor General’s loss calculations by citing the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India against auctions to defend the decision giving spectrum in 2008 at 2001 prices. It states, “The committee notes that the consistent stand taken by the TRAI for non-revision of licence fee and not favouring auction of spectrum is in conformity with the policy prescriptions laid down in NTP 99 and the 10th 5-year plan document that treats telecom sector as an infrastructure sector for the decade commencing from 2002.”

The SC, in its judgment of February 2, 2012 cancelling the 122 licences, castigated the TRAI on the same grounds that the JPC uses to defend the UPA. The SC ruled, “We have no hesitation to record a finding that the recommendations made by TRAI were flawed in many respects and the implementation thereof by DoT resulted in gross violations of the objectives of NTP 99 and the decision taken by the Council of Ministers on 31-10-2003.”

On the issue of advancing the cut-off date – which resulted in a cap of only 122 of the 575 applications being granted 2G spectrum, the JPC report finds this to be a mere “procedural infirmity.” On the issue of placing the cap, it declares, “The decision may not be termed inconsistent with the broad intent of NTP 99 or the spirit of the recommendations of TRAI.” Here again, the SC found otherwise. In its judgment of March 12, 2010, in the S-Tel matter, it upheld a finding of the Delhi High Court which had not only found the arbitrary advancement of the cut-off date as illegal and struck it down, but in fact ruled that the cap placed on the number of operators by virtue of the cut-off date, was an action “contrary” to the “recommendations of TRAI.”

While attacking the CAG for calculating one of the loss estimates based on “sale of equity” by Swan and Unitech to Etisalat and Telenor respectively, the JPC report concludes, “Loss calculation and determination of the value of licences and spectrum on basis of legitimate infusion of FDI by means of fresh equity by telecom companies is untenable.” Swan and Unitech’s lawyers have already attempted to pull off the same argument in the SC, without any success. Contrary to the JPC findings, the SC, in its judgment of February 2, 2012, wrote, “This becomes clear from the fact that soon after obtaining licences, some beneficiaries offloaded their stakes to others in the name of transfer of equity or infusion of fresh capital by foreign companies and thereby made huge profits.”

In a further attack on the CAG for using auctions or increase in entry fee for calculating losses, the JPC report concludes, “The committee, therefore, is of the considered view that the very move for calculation of any loss on account of allocation of license and spectrum is ill conceived.” The SC disagreed. In its February, 2012 order finds, “We have no doubts that if the method of auction had been adopted for grant of licences which could be the only rational transparent method for distribution of national wealth, the nation would have been enriched by many thousand crores.”

The view taken in the JPC report, that any question against “the sanctity of the decisions taken by the internal Telecom Commission is ill founded,” also contradicts the SC’s judgment. The internal Telecom Commission excludes four Secretaries, including the Finance Secretary, who form a part of the full Telecom Commission. The SC described ex-Telecom Minister, A Raja’s actions, including of circumventing the full Telecom Commission — where TRAI recommendations are concerned — as “wholly arbitrary, capricious and contrary to public interest apart from being violative of the doctrine of equality.”

[svenkat]

Report throws up multiple contradictions

The Joint Parliamentary Committee report on the 2G scam has relied on the selective quotation of evidence, often citing the same person’s testimony or decision to both justify the UPA government’s policies and damn those pursued by the former BJP-led NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Though instances of contradictions and cherry-picking abound, the one that stands out relates to the allegations against Mr Vajpayee and the NDA government for causing a loss “to the tune of Rs. 42,080.34 crores in the course of offering migration package vide NTP 99.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/jpcs-2g-report-cherrypicks-facts-to-clear-pms-name/article4634418.ece

[svenkat]

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/dmk-seeks-removal-of-p-c-chacko-as-chairman-of-jpc-committee/1105961/

The DMK today sought the removal of P C Chacko as chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee examining the 2G spectrum allocation, alleging that he had leaked the panel's draft report to the media.

DMK leader T R Baalu said he had given a notice of breach of parliamentary privilege against Chacko over the leakage of the JPC draft report. "We have given privilege notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar against the leakage of JPC draft report by the JPC chairman," Baalu, a Lok Sabha member from Sriperumbudur said.

The Joint Parliamentary Committee examining the 2G scam has reportedly blamed former Telecom Minister A Raja for the spectrum allocation and cleared Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram of any wrongdoing. He said the DMK will seek Chacko's removal as the JPC chairman.

"We will ask for Chacko's removal as he has lost the confidence of members," Baalu said, adding that the DMK members of the Committee would submit dissenting notes to the report. Baalu and Rajya Sabha member Tiruchi Siva are DMK representatives on the JPC.

[ramana]

Looks like Damaad has been cleared in hayarana land scam also.

Looks like a cleanup before they are thrown out of office.

[vishvak]

Looks like honest guy Chako did not make Raja depose before JPC as majority of JPC agreed that what documents Raja sent was enough as Raja sent some documents. Raja claims that he wanted to appear anyway but that never happened but he sent some documents anyway.

[Sanku]

BJP says that the parliament will not function if Ashwini Kumar is not sacked.

Excellent step I say.

[Sanku]

http://www.timesnow.tv/Unexpected-twist ... 425943.cms

Exclusive: Unexpected twist to Coalgate

12 months ago the CAG tabled its draft report on coal block allocations. The losses to the exchequer estimated at a staggering 1.85 lakh crore. Calculations based on the estimate that the per tonne price of coal was about 1028 rupees.

But times now has fresh documents. An internal government report which clearly show that the CAG was playing it really safe with its estimates and that the losses can be as high as double of what has been calculated.

According to the government’s report, “At the mean royalty rate of Rs 100/- per Metric Tonne of Coal , the 2000% of the royalty amount comes to Rs 2000/- per Tonne of coal and for 400 Million Tonnes of mineable reserves in these two mines, the additional amount payable on this account adds to a staggering sum of Rs 80,000 Crores.”

These calculations were made by the empowered committee and the environment ministry related to a project in Madhya Pradesh for the Amelia coal block applied by Sainik mining and allied services.

[Klaus]

A.Raja is going to come out (and apparently come clean) with a book about the entire 2G fiasco. Apparently, he completed reading Rajiv Malhotra's Breaking India whilst in jail, among other books.

One hopes that the revelations in his book come at an appropriate time to correctly reflect any change of attitude he might have undergone.

[vishvak]

Raja and Chacko PC - Raja a UPA minister and prime accused in 2G scam with Chacko PC the head of JPC commissioned to examin 2G scam.

[ramana]

Tribune:
Sonia dismisses BJP demand



Harry dan?

[ramana]

A great judge passes away:

The virtuous manning the ramparts

Obit for Justice JS Verma

At a time when democracy is seen to be beyond repair, Justice Verma taught us that change happens when good people work within the limits of institutions

Jagdish Sharan Verma's career in the law stretched from a pleader in a small town in Madhya Pradesh to eventually becoming the judiciary's conscience keeper. And through that long journey, he never forgot the distinction between an active constitution and an activist judiciary.

To understand this distinction, one must grasp the journey of judicial power in India. The 1970s saw a sustained assault on the Supreme Court by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The judicial pushback in later years was led by non-Congress politicians wanting a powerful court to protect them, as well as judges who felt the need to block executive excess. Politicians such as the Janata Party law minister Shanti Bhushan responded with constitutional amendments guaranteeing judicial independence; judges such as P.N. Bhagwati and Y.V. Chandrachud responded by expanding the kinds of people who could make demands on the court (the emergence of public interest litigation) as well as the varied rights they could access. To this court activism, Justice Verma added two pillars. In his 1993 judgment, he began a process by which Supreme Court appointments were made by judges only, not by politicians. And in his 1997 judgment on the Jain Hawala scam, he invented the "continuing mandamus" — constant court monitoring of police and CBI investigations that has made, for instance, such a difference to the 2G investigation. Thus was born the world's most powerful court.

Verma himself was uneasy with such power. He avoided judgments designed to grab headlines, and respected elected representatives. He aimed to prevent the brazen meddling of the Indira Gandhi era, yet involve democratic leaders in judicial functioning. He was also critical of his own. As chief justice, he pushed senior judges to make their asset details public. Verma's scrutiny of judges extended to himself. He later questioned his own judgments, on the validity of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and on judicial appointments. Can you imagine other public figures being so open about their own failings? And in retirement, this most self-effacing of men lived in an unremarkable rented house on the outskirts of Delhi.

The persistent criticism of Verma has been on his ruling in the Hindutva cases. Election law bans politicians from canvassing on the basis of religion. In the 1987 Maharashtra assembly elections, Shiv Sena candidates asked for votes on the basis of Hinduism. When the case eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, one of the many legal questions was whether asking for votes on the basis of "Hindutva" was, of itself, a communal appeal that disbarred the candidate. Verma said no, holding that the word "Hindutva", of itself, could just mean "a way of life". Verma was not certifying BJP politics; he was simply creating a high bar for disqualifying an elected representative. The BJP trumpeted his judgment as an endorsement, while others bought their lie, savaging Verma for being communal. These criticisms were especially harsh for a man who, post retirement, breathed life into the National Human Rights Commission. His unrelenting pursuit of justice for Muslim victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots echoed in the Supreme Court. In the NHRC vs State of Gujarat set of cases, the Supreme Court responded by getting more than 1,600 cases re-examined, appointing investigators, prosecutors and transferring trials. It was doubtless the heft and integrity of Verma as NHRC chief that prompted the court to go after the Modi government.

The public's enduring image of Verma will likely be the eponymous report he worked on, along with others, in the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi gangrape. Verma's commitment to battling for women's rights was seen in 1997 itself when, as chief justice, he imported foreign law into India to combat sexual harassment in the workplace. The 2013 Verma Committee report avoided comforting clichés ("castration for rapists"), suggesting instead systemic changes to tackle the culture of violence against women. In 630 magisterial pages, the committee moved beyond the Victorian presumptions embedded in our laws to the sexual assault and harassment that women actually face — on the street, in the workplace and within bedrooms. The report also focused on violence against women in conflict zones such as Kashmir and the Northeast, shone a light on how the justice system further humiliates the victim and suggested a host of judicial and police reforms. All of these reflected the enduring constitutional vision of rights and dignity that Verma championed. Not bad for 29 days of work! Like all good reports (The Srikrishna Commission report on the 1993 Bombay riots comes to mind) the government ignored it, cherry-picking cosmetic changes to produce a hash of a law. But the public have formed their own conclusions. In an age where committees and commissions are seen as burial sites for the truth, the swiftly produced report is widely viewed as a model.

Verma's work ethic won him admirers from those he worked with. Mrinal Satish, a professor at National Law University, Delhi, was part of the research team that worked on the Verma Committee report. He told me that on January 18 this year, they were hard at work with Verma ploughing through reams of documents. Midway, the team realised that it was the ageing judge's 80th birthday. "We asked him why he wasn't taking time off to celebrate," Satish said. Verma simply shrugged, pointed to the work ahead, and continued reading.

In this age of Kejriwal, our democracy is seen as beyond repair and the worst is expected of those in power. From Verma, we learnt something else: change happens when good people work within the limits of institutional democracy. As a judge, he pushed for judicial independence and individual rights, yet made other judges accountable. At the NHRC, he went after the Gujarat government for failing its constitutional role. And as head of the Verma committee, he helped produce a report that was quick, consultative and thorough. He taught us that our democracy can be saved by manning its ramparts with the virtuous, not by bypassing it altogether.


The writer is a PhD candidate at Princeton University and visiting scholar at Centre for Policy Research, Delhi

[ramana]

Looks like new chit fund scandal hitting the news in India.

[Muppalla]

Looks like new chit fund scandal hitting the news in India.

Chidu's wife is associated to this scandal per tweets.

[RoyG]

I think we are headed for elections in a few months. Scam after scam, Chinese incursion, policy paralysis, etc. They can't wait till state elections later this year. Chidu is headed for hard times it seems.

[kmkraoind]

11-188819-0-13-20090620-162017 - Outlookindia

Yes, I know its an old stuff, but still wondering how Nira's power broker like Vir Singhvi survived this, and still gives lectures on morality on TV shows, what a vile he is. Please listen to the audio, the way he is telling, the confident way boils me to the core. Really disgusting.

VS: Okay, wrote it. I’ve dressed it up as a piece about how public will not stand for our resources being cornered; how we’re creating a new list of oligarchs, the example I’ve given is the court case which says that mummy will decide...that it’s all a family, that why should our gas be decided by Mummy? I’ve given the example of the deal they struck on Sasan (in Madhya Pradesh where Anil Ambani has a power plant) after the Samajwadi Party supported the government and they went back on the deal and they went back to their old position. I’ve given this example of how spectrum is being allocated and I’ve said that while people have a certain tolerance for corruption in this country, they’ve no tolerance for people cornering our assets and cornering our scarce resources. What’s going to happen in this country is we’re going to become a country run by oligarchs like Russia who nobody can control and that Manmohan Singh must act because he’s basically giving away the future of our children.

[Muppalla]

Anyone following the Coal scam saga. At the last minute before tomorrow (Apr 30th IST) starts, they ensured that a judge on the panel is replaced. The Government is really in dock as PM, SG, AG are in a meeting.

Justice Kurien Joseph replaces Justice J Chelameswar

[Muppalla]

Finally a secular judge for Coal scam.

[vishvak]

In a rare move, Panel finds 3 top judges unfit for SC, in March, 2013.

[pentaiah]

why should SG be in meeting. its between GOI and SC only PM and AG no?

[Muppalla]

why should SG be in meeting. its between GOI and SC only PM and AG no?

The stakes are too high. It is all about SG's money and she don't want to return in any situation and there is every need to take it to granular level so that the money is safe.

[disha]

why should SG be in meeting. its between GOI and SC only PM and AG no?

When did PM make any decisions? He has to run to Sonia all the time!!!

[Philip]

SC slams CBI,Law min. etc.! massive breach of trust.GOI in crisis,Law Min. countign his minutes.Opposition demand resignation of PM and LM.The turds have hit the fan.

SC slams CBI for sharing information on coal scam with govt
Says its first step now would be to liberate CBI from political interference

http://www.business-standard.com/articl ... 216_1.html

Slamming the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for sharing the coal scam investigation report with the government, the Supreme Court today said the move has shaken the entire process and its first step now would be to liberate CBI from political interference.

CBI’s independent position must be restored, said the apex court while instructing that there is no need for the CBI to take instructions from political masters.

CBI had filed an affidavit in the apex court on Friday saying that the agency shared the status report on coal investigation with the Prime Minister's Office, law ministry and coal ministry before submitting it in the court on March 8.

CBI director Ranjit Sinha had told the apex court that the report was shared with the law minister Ashwani Kumar as desired by him along with joint secretary level officers of the PMO.

The apex court also directed the CBI chief to clarify by May 6 as to why in the status report of Mar 8 no disclosure was made that draft report has been shared with Government.

He was also asked to give details of the investigating team including CVs of DIGs/ SPs handling the probe in the coal allocation case and to spell out the procedure being followed by CBI under guidelines on sharing status report on ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile, ASG Haren Raval replaced by senior advocate U U Lalit to represent CBI in the case.

[Muppalla]

This is a keeper:

Gururaj S ‏@Equateall 2h
At 11:51 AM @MediaCrooks predicts: https://twitter.com/mediacrooks/status/ ... 7699850240 …

Has @NDTV suggested that CBI or #Coalgate is a "Social" or "National" problem for which "mindsets" have to be changed

At 1:44 PM. @BDutt says it!
https://twitter.com/BDUTT/status/329146804497162240 …
#CoalGate reveals a lot!

Overwhelming sense of an unraveling of the fabric of India.

This is exactly the same line of discussion in the first 10 to 20 pages of this thread. If there is corruption in non-INC states, it is the fault of the ruling party. If the corruption is by the INC ruled states and centre (INC) then it is the fault of the society.

This is the reason for KA is going to get INC rule as a vimukthi from BJP's Yeddi.

[Muppalla]

The SC in my view is extremely lenient is dealing with Government and its blatant corruption. It should have ordered dismissal of ministers, CBI chief for breach of process and breach of secrecy. Instead, it gave a way to manipulate before May 6th. Few name sake resignations will happen.

[prahaar]

When SC found Govt. of Gujarat not credible enough to pursue investigation and cases, it appointed SIT and also moved some cases out of Gujarat (to prevent political interference). Now in case of 2G, where should we go? The way our SC has behaved and continues to, is worrying.

[kmkraoind]

Goolam Vahanvati: Attorney general or mob lawyer? - Firstpost

Raval’s revelation is explosive and a ringing validation of a brilliant, impeccably researched Caravan profile of the man now making headlines: Goolamhussein Essaji Vahanvati. The rich details in the 8-page cover story by Krishn Kaushik are fascinating, but more noteworthy is the process of corruption it describes. Where media coverage focuses relentlessly on the ends of the corruption — companies and politicians who profit from these multi-zeroed scams — Kaushik tells us how it works, as in what levers are pulled, on what authority, in what ways. [Read it in its entirety here]

As the narrative moves through the various scandals, certain patterns begin to emerge, gaining credibility with sheer repetition. For instance, a clubbing together of names: Anil Ambani, Pranab Mukherjee, Vahanvati. In Coalgate, they are connected by one word: Sasan.

In the case of 2G — where the beneficiary was Anil Ambani’s front company Swan Telecom — the nexus bobs back into sight in the form of a meeting Vahanvati again told the SC never took place (though an RTI shows otherwise):

Still, in the first week of December 2007, Raja went to meet Pranab Mukherjee, then the foreign minister, who chaired an existing group of ministers on spectrum issues. He was accompanied by Vahanvati, who as solicitor general was defending the DoT in a lawsuit filed by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI)…

The meeting was a brief one, and no minutes appear to have been prepared. But Vahanvati presented Mukherjee with a note, detailing the government’s response to the COAI lawsuit, which was later sent by Mukherjee to the prime minister. Under the heading “The issue of new telecom licenses”, Vahanvati described the “first-come, first-served” policy in a way that left room for Raja’s alteration, stating that applicants would be granted their licenses and spectrum once they complied with the letter of intent (LOI) conditions. A letter sent by Raja to Manmohan Singh on 26 December and copied to Mukherjee informed the prime minister that Raja had “several discussions” with Mukherjee regarding spectrum allocation, and that Vahanvati “was also called for the discussions to explain the legal position.

Here is the big article in The Caravan on Vahanvati.

Inside Man

Firstpost is run by a trust controlled by Mukesh Ambani. This article puts blame on Anil Ambani and Congress system. The big question is why? is it power shift or MA is trying wash away some of his bad Karmas.

[Muppalla]

Oye MMS fans on the forum, here are the jilebis.

Something is being cooked and hence this obit style article . This article as it comes from Tehelka does its usual intellectual dishonesty and is shielding the dynasty. MMS is finally being made the scapegoat. I think it may be difficult to replace MMS as he did per orders from political masters and he has evidence in his sleeves. If he goes the ship goes down.

No, Prime Minister

A scam-ridden decade in office has tarred the clean image of Manmohan Singh. But is the PM a victim of circumstance or has he mastered the art of staying in power without accountability? Shoma Chaudhury tracks his legacy

History will judge him harshly for betraying faith; for failing the chance it gave him. It is not everybody who gets two shots at being the prime minister of the most populous democracy in the world. To get to be so as its unelected head is even rarer. Unfortunately for Dr Manmohan Singh, so stark and unexpected have the betrayals been, history has begun to train its lens on him even before his term is done.

For most of the nine years so far in his miracle position, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been uniquely protected by an adjectival fortress. Even as his government has steadily imploded into darker and darker scams, even as the economy has slid into seemingly terminal decline, even as, shamefully, the 15th Lok Sabha has clocked the least number of hours in its history, even as the country feels completely adrift and leaderless, Singh personally has remained curiously firewalled behind the idea of him being a decent, upright and erudite man.

That fortress of goodwill has been fraying for a while. Events this week prove, finally, it is just not tenable any longer. It is time, in fact, for a complete reassessment of who Singh is and what his tenure as PM has meant for India.

Over the past nine years, Singh has often cited “coalition pressures” for stands not taken, decisions not made, scams not averted. This time, he has no such alibi. The CBI’s investigation into the coal scam was being monitored by the Supreme Court. Both as PM — which makes him the head of the council of ministers and responsible for all his colleagues’ actions — and as coal minister for three of the five years under scrutiny, Singh is himself a subject of the inquiry. The Supreme Court had explicitly asked the investigating agency not to share its report with the political executive. But not only did the law minister and officials from the coal ministry and his own office vet the report, they were complicit with three of the highest officers of the land — the Attorney General, Additional Solicitor General and CBI director — committing perjury in the Supreme Court. This is a scandal of unprecedented proportion. The court has made scathing statements about “erosion of trust” and how the entire “process of investigation has been shaken”. But how does the PM react? He asserts there is no reason for the law minister to resign and defers taking any decisions till the Court should force his hand.

This absence of propriety — this chronic timidity in taking a stand — has been a key signature of Singh’s tenure as PM. Leader of Opposition, Arun Jaitley, who has long been a strident critic of Singh, has often exhorted him both within and outside Parliament to behave like the head of the country and not merely a civil servant or party marionette. “The trouble with the prime minister,” he says, “is that he is completely ideology-less. He does not act like a leader; he does what a cabinet secretary should do.”

There was a time when only critics held this dim view of the PM. Increasingly now, even his well-wishers are voicing similar misgivings. Sanjaya Baru, who was Singh’s media adviser, says, “For the first five years of his tenure, he was seen as a puppet PM, a nominee of the Congress President Sonia Gandhi. In 2009, had he stood for Lok Sabha elections, it would have been his mandate. Those 60 extra seats they got were earned on his goodwill and performance. But he could not bring himself to claim that mandate.”

The second thing Baru faults him for is to not have had the spine to assert himself when corruption charges began to emerge in UPA 2. “He should have gone to the party and said, I refuse to carry the can, but he did not do that. Being the prime minister is no ordinary position. You are the symbol of the entire country. There is no position more powerful than that. Even the president cannot make a speech in Parliament unless it is cleared by the prime minister, but he never assumed that authority.”

There is a sort of reductive irony about a good man in a big chair who insists on behaving small. Baru encapsulates that with a joke doing the rounds in Delhi’s power circles. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the PM, people used to say the real prime minister was his national security adviser and principal secretary Brajesh Mishra. Now that Manmohan Singh is the PM, they joke that he is the principal secretary. Baru says he shared this crack with the PM; Singh had the magnanimity to laugh. But clearly, he did not draw on its lessons.

This talk of Singh’s proclivity to behave like a bureaucrat — an employee dependent on some higher political authority — rather than as the country’s foremost leader is no ordinary criticism. In fact, its damaging impacts cannot be emphasised enough. It has resulted in an unparalleled power vacuum; a loss of morale; stagnant decision-making; a log-jammed Parliament; zero public messaging; a crippling absence of vision. And a country lurching from crisis to crisis.

In fact, the dismaying truth about Prime Minister Singh is that his positive attributes may only be a shallow cover for darker ones: cowardice, complicity, an inordinate attachment to power and a constant abdication of responsibility. In effect, this has hollowed out the very institution of the prime minister’s office, leaching it of authority, making it the butt of jokes. Ironically, in the process, Singh has even made the idea of decency, erudition and honesty — genuine calling cards he had to begin with — seem effete and irrelevant to public life.

So far, Singh has evaded scrutiny despite an epic season of scams. But how much longer can he? The blueprint of this scandal stretches disturbingly, much further back into his tenure. The patterns make for dismal reading.

Singh’s most severe critics — Supreme Court lawyer and Aam Admi Party leader Prashant Bhushan, for instance — would concede one thing about him: he is not in the clumsy business of greed and kickbacks. His failing is subtler but, in the long run, far more corrosive. His failure is that he has allowed chaos and corruption to balloon around him. The charitable view on this would be that he has been helpless, or “out of depth” as one sympathetic officer in government put it. (The riposte to this would be that such naivete then has no business being in such a complex chair.) More clear-eyed analysis would say when push came to shove, he’s always deliberately looked the other way — or knowingly allowed things to happen — so he could stay in his seat and his government could run. A couple of such incidents could pass as oversight. When it becomes a habitual way of being, it can only count as corruption.

The current crisis with the country’s law officers is extremely telling. As Supreme Court lawyer Kamini Jaiswal says, “This government has ravaged every institution in the country. The scandal of GE Vahanvati and Harin Raval lying in court is the saddest day for India. Vahanvati’s convenient opinions have lowered the office of the Attorney General. These officers are meant to have the same moral stature as the judges of Supreme Court; they are meant to give sound legal advice to the government, they are meant to uphold the law, not become errand boys.”

What makes this doubly dark is that the perjury is not an isolated incident. As Gopal Subramaniam, former Solicitor General who resigned over a moral disagreement with the government over a representation in the 2G case, says, “The UPA government led by PM Manmohan Singh has shown very little regard for constitutional values and the rule of law. They have no legal ideology. This is the deepest faultline of this government.”

The gravity of this charge tops the Richter. It suggests that the UPA has been willing to subvert due process whenever convenient, even though, as Subramaniam puts it, “due process of law” is the very heart of fundamental rights and parliamentary democracy.

Another lawyer who declined to go on record said, “There’s no point blaming Vahanvati. If the PM or his law minister had wanted higher standards from him, he was perfectly capable of delivering on them. But they only wanted the shortcuts and the getaway strategies.”

As political nominees, the quality of its law officers is indeed directly reflective of the government. In that light, Vahanvati’s track record is not a flattering one. On 27 February this year, in an infamous first for an Attorney General, Vahanvati deposed as a witness in Judge OP Saini’s court examining the 2G scam. Former telecom minister A Raja has vociferously maintained that both the prime minister and Vahanvati (who was the Solicitor General at the time of the scam) were completely aware of all the decisions for which he was jailed. In an outburst in court one day he shouted pointing at Vahanvati, “He gets promoted from SG to AG and I am jailed. Is this justice?”

Raja stands on some valid ground. In a cover story last year, former TEHELKA Investigations Editor Ashish Khetan had detailed why jailing Raja and exonerating Vahanvati was legally untenable. In a nutshell, the argument goes like this: The brunt of the accusation against Raja in the 2G scam is 1) that pricing for the spectrum had not been raised to accommodate new market conditions; 2) that he arbitrarily advanced the cut-off date for applications, thereby disqualifying almost 60 percent of the applicants and favouring a few; and 3) that he subverted the terms of the first-come-first-served policy.

On 10 January 2008, Raja issued a press release that outlined the contours of all these decisions. This is deemed to be the heart of the scam: D-Day. The then law minister HR Bhardwaj had wanted this referred to an empowered group of ministers for further deliberations, but Raja by-passed him and sent a draft of the press release to Vahanvati for legal clearance, along with a comprehensive file. Vahanvati, who had been appearing for the government in several telecom-dispute related cases and was presumably very familiar with the policy issues involved, wrote in the file, “I have seen the notes” and declared it “fair and reasonable” and “transparent”.


When the scandal broke in 2011, both Prashant Bhushan and BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who was heading the Public Accounts Committee, raised questions about Vahanvati’s role in the 2G scam, but the CBI submitted a detailed affidavit defending him on flimsy grounds. They argued that Vahanvati was not culpable because Raja had changed the press release after the AG’s clearance. In truth, Raja had merely dropped a paragraph that had absolutely no bearing on the case.

But till date, Vahanvati has escaped all culpability for this. In the witness box this February, he argued rather incredulously that he had not seen the rest of the file, did not know about the advancement of date or that the policy had been subverted.

Most of Raja’s exertions in the 2G case seem to have been to favour the Anil Ambani group and Unitech. What makes this saga even darker is that Vahanvati himself is seen as being close to Anil Ambani.

{This is clearly like the saga of Mohan Khatre the infamous CBI director who plotted to kill Nusli Wadia along with Ambani in the 1980s}

In two other instances related to Ambani, he gave extremely dubious advice. In January 2009, the Department of Telecom had wanted the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to look into Swan Telecom’s ownership pattern, which was deemed to be a front company for Ambani and seemed to violate some eligibility clauses for spectrum. In March 2009, however, Vahanvati ruled out any need to investigate this further. Later, of course, Swan was one of the companies that lay in the eye of the 2G storm.

In 2011 again, the CAG report on coal flagged that Anil Ambani had been given three cheap captive coal blocks to service his ultra mega power project in Sasan in Madhya Pradesh. However, soon after, on Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s request to the PM, he had been allowed to divert excess coal from these blocks to service another plant in Chitrangi. CAG calculated that this concession would earn Ambani Rs 29,000 crore over 20 years. The Tatas, who had also been in the fray for the Sasan plant, complained about this unfair concession. Both coal and power ministry officials wanted the decision cancelled, but Vahanvati and Pranab Mukherjee, then finance minister, overruled them.

The point in detailing these disparate cases is that even if one supposes the PM was not directly issuing instructions to Vahanvati to take a certain line, surely he could not have been unaware of the AG’s nepotistic interest in the Anil Ambani group or his dubious positions on the 2G policy? Why did he not flag any discomfort with the situation? Instead, the government’s relationship with Vahanvati has only continued to deepen while other law officers like Gopal Subramaniam and Rohinton Nariman, who held their ground at different junctures, were made to leave precipitously.

The PM’s own tacit complicity in the 2G scam is itself hard to deny. On 26 December 2007, Raja had sent a letter to the PM with a memo, explaining the process of spectrum allocation as he envisioned it. On 29 December, Singh had asked for this to be “urgently examined”. His officers in the PMO — Pulok Chatterjee and his then principal secretary TKA Nair — did a detailed analysis through a “comparative chart” on 6 January 2008.

About a week later, Pulok wanted to share the PMO’s broad agreement on the policy with the telecom secretary, but the PM’s Personal Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam sent the now famous note that said, “The PM wants this informally shared, does not want any formal communication and wants the PMO to remain at arm’s length please”.

The PMO has subsequently clarified that the PM’s desire to “remain at arm’s length” was to enable the telecom ministry to apply its mind on the merits of the issue and not feel bound by a directive from the PM. However, the whole sequence shows the PM in very painful light.

When he was finally cornered into making a statement in Parliament, contrary to the paper trails detailed above, Singh categorically washed his hands of the issue saying the Cabinet decision of 2003 had specifically left the issue to be determined by the Ministries of Finance and Telecom.

But that is not where it ends. As an aide who once worked closely with the PM says, “It’s never the scam per se that is the problem; the real problem begins with the cover-ups.”

Even after the scam was exposed, Singh refused to claim the high ground by initiating any clean-up himself. He has of course consistently refused to appear both before the JPC and the PAC, rendering both mechanisms toothless. In a clear violation of just and fair process, Raja too has not been allowed to testify before the JPC. An official with the CBI says on condition of anonymity that the investigation into the 2G scam has itself been a scandal, with its illogical and selective arrests: some corporate chieftains, but not others; some ministers, not others; some bureaucrats not others.

Three circumstances have defined Singh’s tenure as a prime minister. First, as an unelected prime minister he has been perceived to be a nominee of Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi rather than a natural leader. Two, he has had to balance the unruly demands of coalition partners, often in contradiction to his own temperament. And three, he’s been part of what veteran columnist and journalist Prem Shankar Jha calls a “very complex diarchy”: an asymmetrical division of power between Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and himself.

There are two schools of thought on this. One school, represented by people like Sanjaya Baru, believes there is tremendous interference from the Gandhis in the choices Singh is allowed to make. He is neither allowed to choose his ministers nor his key officers; often the grey area compulsions that dictate his actions are communicated to him through informal channels. He is merely the titular face of decisions that are taken elsewhere.

“He should never have agreed to these terms of employment,” says Baru. “He could have become a very tall leader in his own right, especially after 2009. But he is driven by a sense of loyalty. He believes he owes his job only to the Gandhis.”

There is another school of thought, however, which asserts that the Gandhis almost never interfere with the actual workings of the government and are very mindful of the PM’s dignity. If Sonia claimed any space at all on the policies of the government, it was through the mechanism of the National Advisory Council in UPA-I. Other than that, they believe, she leaves Singh to take his own decisions.

One officer from the foreign services, now retired, hazards a third framework. “The truth is Sonia rarely intervenes, but because he’s always looking over his shoulder and there are indeed two clear centres of power, it leaves a lot of space for people in the middle to whisper innuendoes and orders in her name. There’s no way of crosschecking whether they are speaking on authority or not. This creates a lot of confusion and second-guessing.”

All three scenarios are in the realm of conjecture. But they have one common riposte: no matter what the circumstance, he is the man who has had the chair. What has he made of it? If indeed he’s been cornered into too many positions not of his liking, why has he not protested and risked his job to get the right thing done? On what does his reputation for integrity and decency lie? What is his legacy going to be?

In February 2012, while cancelling 122 2G licences, in a scathing indictment, the Supreme Court criticised the “arbitrary and capricious” way in which a precious natural resource like spectrum had been given out — “contrary to public interest and violative of the doctrine of equality”.

Before economist Raghuram Rajan joined the government as economic adviser to the PM, he spoke of how crony capitalism was destroying democracy; of how 80 percent of India’s new billionaires had made their “wealth through stealth”; through proximity to government rather than through innovation and genuine entrepreneurship.

For the man billed as India’s most revered “reform architect”, nothing could be a worse report card. Be it spectrum or coal then, quite apart from the specific instances of corruption, even at a policy level, Singh has been unable to acquit himself in his area of core competence: economy and governance. He has proved unable — or disinclined — to leave a robust legacy and regulatory framework on how natural resources should be transparently and judiciously used. In January 2011, aware of the growing crisis around him, Singh even set up a highpowered committee under former finance secretary Ashok Chawla to create this framework. But inexplicably, two years later, he has not even begun to act on the recommendations.

The same apathy and weakness marked his run-up to the coal scam. With coal secretary PC Parakh constantly raising flags by his side, Singh announced in 2004 that auction was the most transparent and preferred option for allocating coal blocks, but he did not operationalise this till 2010. The intervening six years saw a mad, cross-party scramble for coal blocks handed out to favourites and pressure groups. Both as coal minister for three years and, of course, as PM, Singh presided unblinkingly over that unseemly chaos without doing a thing to either streamline the ad hoc largesse of the screening committee or order and audit of the functioning of the blocks that had been given.

In a bitter irony for Singh, therefore, there is now a new reading of him doing the rounds. As Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar says, “People now say maybe he’s an overrated economist but an underrated politician. The presence of the PMO,” he continues, “in many visible instances of corruption — be it CWG, Coalgate, 2G, or CBI investigations — is very disconcerting. The PM and his team are supposed to reflect the moral attributes we expect of our leaders and not become the emblematic symbol of what’s wrong with governance.”

A Congress member of the Union Council of Ministers puts it more bluntly, “Don’t underestimate the PM. The Congress president may have made him the PM, but he has started enjoying power. He will not fade into oblivion quietly.”
{100% right on dot}

Over the past few years, the media has indeed been rife with speculation about the internecine power struggle between Singh, P Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee.

Jaitley has a similar prognosis. “Singh,” he says, “has learnt the art of staying in power without doing anything.” Even coming from a political adversary, it seems a fair assessment. Singh’s instinct has been to isolate himself from the underbelly of politics. Yet he is quite comfortable to let others do his dirty work for him. In some sense, in his desire to maintain his own clean image while enjoying the fruits of power, he seems to have outsourced the very process of decision-making. While Pranab Mukherjee was in the Cabinet, there were 27 Groups of Ministers — popularly called GOMs — meant to review thorny issues and decisions. Mukherjee headed 12. Above this, there were 12 EGOMs (empowered group of ministers) with even more powers. Mukherjee headed them all.

Currently, there are six EGOMs, four headed by AK Antony; one each by Sharad Pawar and Chidambaram. Of the GOMs, 10 are headed by Chidambaram, five by Antony and six by Sharad Pawar. Under the circumstance, if any area of decision- making gets sticky, the “arm’s length” distance can be invoked in an instant.

Singh, however, is clearly not above getting his way. Party insiders remember the 15th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt in 2009. India and Pakistan had met on the sidelines of the summit and issued a joint statement in which Balochistan was officially mentioned for the first time as an area of concern in bilateral relations. This created a furore back in India. The Opposition, media, policy wonks and some within the Congress party itself were very perturbed by what they felt was a foreign policy gaffe. Sources say Singh’s own national security adviser MK Narayanan had a difference of opinion with him on this. This did not please Singh. To Narayanan’s utter surprise, Singh took him out of his powerful post and booted him up as Governor of Bengal soon after.

The only time Singh has played the self-assertion really high, however, is over the Indo-US nuclear deal in July 2008. Despite deep opposition from Sonia Gandhi and sections of the Congress, despite the risk of losing Left support and, in turn, the government itself, he stood firm. It was either the deal or him, he told Sonia.

The subsequent events are too well known to merit a revisit. Those who were close to the PM at the time say Singh had been told by John Kerry, now US Secretary of State, that if the deal was not done before George W Bush’s tenure ended, India would not get another shot at it. Singh was convinced India needed this deal. He went for broke.

But what makes Singh’s gauntlet then so interesting is a corollary question: why has he never felt so strongly about anything before or since? Certainly, no crucial governance or constitutional issues seem to have ever caught his passionate attention. The current CBI flashpoint is a good test case.

If Singh had wholly deserved his reputation for being a man of great integrity and probity, the intensely compromised state of the CBI should have been at least one equivalent concern. The misuse of the CBI is not a new phenomenon. When CBI chief Ranjit Sinha says now that the agency is not an autonomous body, he is articulating a truism many exasperated CBI bosses have echoed before him.

In another TEHELKA cover story last year (Leave the Sleuths Alone; by Ashish Khetan, 14 January 2012), several CBI chiefs have spelled out how successive governments have interfered in the investigation of the Taj Corridor Case involving Mayawati; the fodder scam involving Laloo Yadav; the Jain hawala case and many more. Each of them has outlined the myriad ways in which government control has crippled and compromised them. Some solutions already exist in the Supreme Court’s Vineet Narain judgement of 1997.

If Singh had been serious about leaving a luminous legacy history would remember, he would have deemed this a “wakeup call”. This is one vexed question he could have tried to answer: how do you make the CBI truly independent?

But in a typical pattern of abdication, Singh has done absolutely nothing since the scandal broke. Not expressed a word of dismay; not promised an iota of action. Instead he’s been quite happy to let the courts dictate how the agency can be resurrected. The talk, in fact, is that Singh has decided to hold on to law minister Ashwani Kumar — seen to be close to him — despite the embarrassment, so some assurance could be brokered that if Kumar was sacrificed, Singh would not be next.

The apprehension is real. In the past, when the need has arisen, Singh has stooped to conquer. For instance, the CBI investigation into Mulayam Singh’s disproportionate assets is a red button the government clearly switches on and off at will. Even a cursory look at it makes for a dizzying story.{Mulayam is created as Mir Jaffer}

This was particularly evident after the trust vote over the nuclear deal. Interestingly, Vahanvati, once again, had a major role. The sequence of events is pretty damning. Responding to a PIL in March 2007, the Supreme Court had directed the CBI to start a Preliminary Enquiry on Mulayam and his family’s assets. The CBI filed its report and requested the court to order the case to be registered. Inexplicably, the court failed to do so. In July 2008, the SP supported the UPA on the trust vote. A few months later, in November 2008, Vahanvati appeared for the CBI and said the application to proceed with the investigation was being withdrawn because it was improper of the CBI to include the assets of the kids unless it could be proved they were being held for Mulayam to avoid detection. Without allowing an investigation, it was impossible to prove this.

In January 2009, in a bizarre twist, Vahanvati again appeared before the Supreme Court and trashed his own opinion in the case as ‘no longer relevant’ and requested that investigations be opened. In March 2009, as a pre-poll alliance with the SP went cold, the CBI further stepped up its investigations. In February 2011, Vahanvati appeared yet again and argued that the case should be withdrawn because no “fundamental right had been violated”. An exasperated court told Mulayam’s lawyers, “He is supporting you. He has argued for you.”

In November 2012, Vishwanath Chaturvedi, the original litigant, wanted to have Vahanvati charged for “criminal conspiracy”. It is impossible to imagine that PM Manmohan Singh has been oblivious to all of this: the backroom machinery that has kept his government in place — almost to a full term now — despite scams and alienated coalition partners.

The only other times Prime Minister Singh has even come close to something akin to public noise has been over the POSCO, Niyamgiri and Lavasa projects and his spat with Jairam Ramesh over the “go-and no-go areas” in allocation of coal mines. His other strident position has been on the tribal unrest and Maoist insurgency in central India. Singh famously called it the “biggest internal security threat in the country”, not out of a moment of conscience, not because the most dispossessed of India’s citizens had reached a point of desperation, but because the conflict was holding up mining leases and spoiling the “investment climate” in India.

Prashant Bhushan offers two clues into understanding Singh’s mindset. Singh’s PhD thesis in Oxford University, says Bhushan, was titled “India’s Export Performance, 1952-62”. In this Singh argued that India’s export had not grown sufficiently because it had failed to export its minerals. “He does not grasp the idea of a ‘resource curse’,” says Bhushan. “He does not understand that even domestic consumption is a curse, but to export a country’s mineral resources is completely a colonial mentality. His thinking is completely captured by foreign investments and GDP growth.” Joblessness, human development index, nutrition, education — these, says Bhushan, seem to hover very far on Singh’s peripheral vision.

The other clue to Singh’s mental landscape, feels Bhushan, is a detail in Apila-Chapila, Ashok Mitra’s autobiography. Mitra writes in his book that when Narasimha Rao took over as PM in 1991, India had only two weeks of foreign reserves left. The country was desperate for a loan from the IMF. The terms of the loan were one, that India would make the necessary structural adjustments to its policies, and two, that the finance minister would be chosen in consultation with the IMF and US government. It is in these circumstances that Manmohan Singh was made finance minister in 1991.
{This is I told you so moment. There were times when BRF warned/banned for calling Traitor. Someone wrote this in a book}


“He has been faithfully implementing their policies ever since,” says Bhushan.

Baru, though, scorns such easy binaries. “He’s the last guy you can accuse of being a neo-liberal,” he says.

Either way, on the economic front — be it on high GDP growth or the human development index — as the last year of his term creeps up on him, Singh has some hard problem solving to do. One only has to recall the euphoric “Singh is King!” jingles with which the media welcomed him back for his second term in 2009, to get a full sense of the travesty now.

India is seeing its worst GDP figures, inflation is high, joblessness is rampant, growth has outstripped infrastructure, the trade deficit is huge, the rupee has crashed, investments are fleeing and 10 million youngsters are joining the work force each year with nowhere to go. Economists complain that interest rates are too high. Food is rotting in granaries. There is little transparency, speed, cohesion or stability in decision-making. Infrastructure projects are stalled. India’s policies on forest, land usage and mining remain unclear and full of loopholes for industry to exploit. Consumer spending is down. Education, health indices, skill development and water management is in a mess.

The cacophanic list of woes goes on. But, chillingly, all it is met with is silence. That is the one thing India can no longer afford now.

Manmohan Singh lost his mother at childbirth in Gah, a little village in Rawalpindi. His father was never home. Singh was brought up by his grandmother. He walked to an adjacent village to go to school. His home had no access to electricity or drinking water. His aunt fed him selectively, he was bone thin. From there, Singh came to Amritsar and further to Cambridge and Oxford. He’s been RBI governor, Planning Commission head, chief economic adviser, finance secretary, leader of Opposition and now PM for 10 years. He’s lived every part of the Indian narrative: he could embody its best dream.

Unfortunately though, right now, he feels only like a slow fall nightmare.

— With inputs from Shaili Chopra, Brijesh Pandey, Ashhar Khan and G Vishnu

[ramana]

Hindu reports:
Law Minister knocking at all doors to keep his job

Union Law Minister Ashwani Kumar’s efforts on Wednesday evening to rally government and party spokespersons at a meeting specially convened for the purpose did not evoke the sympathy he had hoped for. Indeed, he found himself grilled by them, with most suggesting that had he made an explanatory statement on the floor of the House, instead of expecting party colleagues to defend him, the session could not have been such a washout. A senior minister even told him that the government’s legislative agenda — topped by the food security Bill and land acquisition Bill — had been totally derailed, and he should have made a statement to set the record straight.

To this, Mr. Kumar apparently said the matter was sub judice, to which another minister riposted that he could have cited parliamentary privilege and made the statement. Annoyed at this, Mr. Kumar told his party colleagues he would do so only if he was asked by the high command, a remark that further angered all those gathered.

If Mr. Kumar, whose fate still hangs in the balance with the Opposition asking for his resignation, wants party colleagues to defend him more vocally, an interview given by Solicitor-General Mohan Parasaran on Thursday to Times Now sought to distance Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from coalgate: Mr. Parasaran told Times Now that the Prime Minister “was not even aware of the meetings,” that he made a clear distinction and stressed “We cannot interfere in matters of investigation.” The PM, the Solicitor-General said, had told him in a lighter vein that thanks to the media hype, people were even being made to believe that he (the PM) was involved in the matter.

CBI Director Ranjit Sinha too simultaneously sought to distance himself from the imbroglio. In an interview to Mail Today, he said, “I believe the outcome of this case may set new standards for the independence for the CBI … If in reality the CBI has to be independent, it requires functional independence and structural changes.” He stressed that he went to meet the Law Minister as they have “day-to-day dealings.” Asked whether the Minister made any changes to the coalgate draft report, he said he would disclose that to the Supreme Court on May 6.

On Wednesday, Mr. Kumar told party colleagues that he had done nothing wrong by meeting the CBI Director on the coalgate affidavit issue, as he believed that they shared a “client-lawyer” relationship. He added that BJP leader Arun Jaitley also met the CBI Director when he was Law Minister. He told them that in this case he did not represent the “political executive” as the agency came under MoS for Personnel V. Narayanasamy.

Mr. Kumar also sought to shift the blame for the presence of the CBI Director, at the meeting in his room, on Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati: he said that while he had asked the AG to arrange a meeting along with Additional Solicitor-General Harin P Raval to sort out the differences between the two men, it was Mr. Vahanvati who had brought the CBI Director along.

Wednesday’s meeting, called by Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi, was attended by Union Ministers Pawan Bansal, Jairam Ramesh, Jayanthi Natarajan, Manish Tewari and Rajiv Shukla and party spokespersons Sandeep Dikshit, P.C. Chacko, Renuka Chowdhury, Rashid Alvi and Girija Vyas.


{A bunch of harridans!}

Meanwhile, at the official briefing on Thursday, Mr. Dikshit was circumspect. Asked whether the party thought Mr. Kumar had done no wrong, the spokesperson said the Minister consistently maintained that he had done no wrong: the issue was before the court and on Monday the CBI would file its affidavit and let the court decide whether what he had done was right or wrong. “We stand by him till it is proved otherwise,” Mr. Dikshit said, adding, “We have no reason not to believe what he is saying. The issue of blame comes when there is wrongdoing and that is for the Supreme Court to decide. Right now, it is all speculation whether the meeting was called with an ulterior motive and changes were made.”

if such details are being given to Hindu then its high level damage control in pprocess. Can see him resign to save the govt agenda.

[svinayak]

They are trying to avert a collapse with a change of few people.

But they may not be able to avoid much.
Before May 20 it may collapse

[Philip]

One sincerely hopes that the SC will fast track the coalgate scam and pin the responsibility for the scam and the perjurry upon the true perpetrators,MMS and Co. and order their arrest as was done with Raja.

[Muppalla]

One sincerely hopes that the SC will fast track the coalgate scam and pin the responsibility for the scam and the perjurry upon the true perpetrators,MMS and Co. and order their arrest as was done with Raja.

Watch out for unbelievable levels of subversions. The stakes are too high.

[Prem]

[urlhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-01/rocks ... ergy.html=] Scam after Scam after Scam [/url]

Rocks in India Coal Supply Means More Power Blackouts: Energy

Dharmendra Kumar owes his job to rocks masquerading as coal. He drives a payloader at NTPC Ltd (NTPC)., the country’s largest electricity producer, scooping out boulders from mountains of coal disgorged from open-topped railway cars. He drops the rocks, some as large as a bathtub, into a pile forming its own mountain at NTPC’s Dadri power plant in north India. The pile of rubble represents a brewing conflict between state-owned Coal India Ltd (NTPC). and NTPC that’s threatening to cut electricity supplies in 20 states across India, Asia’s third- biggest economy. The country already has a 9 percent shortage of power at peak demand, shaving about 1.2 percentage points from gross domestic product, according to government estimates. “The government must step in immediately to resolve the crisis,” said Deven Choksey, managing director at KR Choksey Shares & Securities Pvt. in Mumbai. “There is a lot at stake here.” In March, state-owned NTPC reached the end of its patience with adulterated coal and told Coal India it wouldn’t continue paying for rock. It also refused to sign 20-year supply contracts for recently built power plants unless assured of “minimum quality,” NTPC Chairman Arup Roy Choudhury said last month. In response, Coal India reduced supply to two NTPC power plants. On April 4, NTPC wrote to utilities in about 20 states where it provides electricity, warning the dispute could result in a power crisis, according to an e-mailed copy of the letter provided to Bloomberg News. Coal India, which has fallen 11 percent this year, fell 0.6 percent to 317.30 rupees at the close of trading in Mumbai. NTPC gained 1.8 percent to 160.25 rupees

[Sushupti]

Kanimozhi had no role in Rs 200 crore transaction: 2G witness

http://newindianexpress.com/nation/Kani ... 573555.ece

[svenkat]

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/railway-minister-pawan-kumar-bansal-s-nephew-arrested-by-cbi-for-allegedly-accepting-bribe-362541

Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal's nephew has been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs. 90 lakh from a member of the Railways Board who allegedly wanted a better position. But the minister has denied involvement in the alleged scam.

In a statement released today, Mr Bansal said he "had no knowledge or clue about the matter at all." He also said he was looking forward to an "expeditious" investigation by CBI in the matter and insisted that his relatives "do not and cannot meddle in my official functions or influence my decisions."

The minister's nephew, Vijay Singla, was arrested in Chandigarh, where he lives, for accepting Rs. 90 lakh in cash from a man named Manjunath who was the middleman for Mahesh Kumar, who was arrested in Mumbai. Both are likely to be produced in a Delhi court later today.

Mr Kumar was recently promoted and made a member of the top governing body of the Railways. He joined the Railways Board in Delhi as a Member Staff on May 2. However, he allegedly wanted to "buy" a "more lucrative" post, say sources. Earlier, Mr Kumar was posted in Mumbai as the General Manager, Western Railways.

[svenkat]

A prosecution witness today told a Delhi court that DMK MP Kanimozhi, who is facing trial in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case, had "no role at all" in the Rs 200 crore transactions between Kalaignar TV (P) Ltd and Cineyug Films (P) Limited.

The statement assumes significance as it contradicts the CBI theory according to which Kanimozhi was taking interest in the day-to-day affairs of the TV channel in which she was having 20 per cent shares.

Deposing as a prosecution witness, G Rajendran, General Manager (Finance) of Kalaignar TV (P) Ltd, said the DMK MP had no role in the investment matters between Kalaignar TV and Cineyug Films (P) Ltd, whose Director Karim Morani is also facing trial in the case.

"It is correct that in all the investment matters from Cineyug Films (P) Limited to Kalaignar TV (P) Limited and vice versa, Kanimozhi Karunanithi had no role at all," he told Special CBI Judge O P Saini during his cross examination by senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, who appeared for the DMK MP.

Rajendran, whose recording of statement concluded today, told the court that Kalaignar TV had applied for the requisite licence from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting more than a month after Kanimozhi's resignation from directorship of the channel on June 20, 2007.

"It is correct that application for licence to Ministry of I&B, was made for the first time on July 30, 2007, more than a month after resignation of Kanimozhi Karunanithi.

"It is correct that it would be wrong to say that Kanimozhi was looking after the obtaining of licence from Ministry of Information and Broadcasting," he said.

The agency had chargesheeted Kanimozhi alleging that Rs 200 crore "illegal gratification" was routed from Dynamix Realty to Kalaignar TV through Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd and Cineyug Films Pvt Ltd.

According to the CBI, Karunanidhi's wife Dayalu Ammal, his daughter Kanimozhi and co-accused Sharad Kumar, Director of Kalaignar TV, have 60, 20 and 20 per cent shares of the TV channel respectively.

Rajendran told the court that Kalaignar TV received Rs 200 crore from Cineyug Films (P) Ltd and the money was received through banking channel in different tranches. He also said that on receipt of Rs 200 crore, all the money were put into the business of Kalaignar TV.

"Starting with the month of December 2010, the money was returned along with interest to Cineyug Films (P) Ltd in different tranches. The money was returned as Cineyug Films (P) Ltd insisted on its return.

"Cineyug Films (P) Ltd asked for the return of the money, as it had approached Kalaignar TV (P) Ltd for equity participation and that did not happen," he said adding that the money started to come from Cineyug Films in December 2008 and continued till August 2009.

During his cross examination, Rajendran said Kanimozhi had neither attended any board meeting of Kalaignar TV nor visited its office after June 20, 2007.

On being cross examined by senior advocate Sushil Kumar, who appeared for Sharad Kumar, Rajendran said Dayalu Ammal was fully aware of the decision to raise Rs 200 crore from Cineyug Films (P) Ltd and Sharad had "not acted independently on his own" as all his actions were authorised and approved by Dayalu Ammal.

[ramana]

Looks like West bengal has its own "cheat" fund scam in which TMC is full emboriled.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/west- ... d_also_see

The sad thing is neighbors in West Bengal are attacking each other as victims of the fraud.

[Muppalla]

^^^
Good for INC as it can expect friendship from TMC.

[vivek.rao]

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/link- ... 57973.html

Looks like PM is directly involved in the Railgate

In this case, the senior-most railway official was RC Agarwal, GM, North-Western Railway. He is due to retire on 30 November 2014. Mahesh Kumar, GM Western Railway, before he was elevated to the board and now under suspension in the bribery case, is to retire on 31 July 2015.

Pawan Bansal made a panel of three railway officials – RC Agarwal, Mahesh Kumar and VK Gupta (due for retirement on 31 May 2016) to pick a Railway Board member. And it was Bansal who presented the case of Mahesh Kumar superseding RC Agarwal as Board Member (Staff) before the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC).

Prime Minister Manmhohan Singh heads the ACC and other members of the Committee are Minister of Personnel and Training V Narayanasamy and Railway Minister Pawan Bansal himself. Bansal picked Mahesh Kumar out of the three and recommended him as the next Member (Staff). The ACC ratified Bansal’s recommendation.

Not only this! On 2 May, Mahesh took over as Member (Staff) and he continued to hold additional charge of GM, Western Railway. On 3 May, Mahesh was arrested and suspended. This is when the railway ministry hurriedly announced his successor, RC Agarwal, as GM, Western Railway.

It is widely speculated within the railway ministry that Agarwal, who was superseded by Mahesh Kumar and hence the directly affected party in this entire promotions episode, may be the whistleblower in this case.

Yesterday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seized all the files relating to the appointment of the Board Member (Staff). CBI has also taken away files about empanelment of three railway officials for the post of Member (Staff) and Bansal’s recommendation for Mahesh Kumar’s appointment before the ACC.

The criminal conspiracy that is being suspected is that Bansal may have made a deal through his nephew Vijay Singla for payment of Rs 10 crore by Mahesh Kumar, who was promised dual charge as Member (Staff) and GM, Western Railway. And in course of time, Mahesh Kumar was also promised that he would be made Member (Electrical) as soon as the post became vacant.

[ramana]

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ASG Letter full text. Not proper forum but relavent to know the level institutions have falled in India

Learned Attorney General Sir,

Sir, as a leader of the Bar and our team of Law Officers, I had expected guidance from you Sir, in discharge of my professional duties, notwithstanding the fact that we deal matters entrusted to us independently. Having reflected upon what is being debated in public domain for a past couple of days and more particularly since the morning of last Friday, with a very heavy heart, I am constrained to address this letter to you to make the record straight and take the liberty of reminding you of the facts which are within your knowledge and of which corroboration exists.

Harin Raval in his letter has alleged that he has been made a scapegoat in the coal scam case. The trigger point of this letter is the remark made by you to me, on Friday 26th April, 2013 inside the Gentlemen’s Cloak room of the 2nd floor, when you asked me “Harin, Why are you so angry with me” and I politely replied to you. You further remarked that “you did not contradict me in Court”. Sir, you are aware that on the contrary, the truth is otherwise. It was I, who did not contradict you in Court.

You will kindly recall the sequence of facts during hearing that took place on 12th March, 2013 in respect of Item 11 in Court 5. I had entered the Court room a little late as I was on my legs before some other Court. During the hearing when you were on your legs, certain queries were put to you on basis of the facts stated in the Status Report filed by the CBI in a sealed cover. You will also kindly recall that you had remained present even for mentioning on 8th March, 2013, when permission was sought for filing status report in a sealed cover instead of filing of an affidavit as per my statement recorded in the order dated 24.01.2013.

During the course of hearing when you were called upon to respond to certain paragraphs of the Status Report as regards the decision of the Government and the Screening Committee in the matter of allocations of coal blocks, you had not only exhibited ignorance of the facts stated in the Status Report which you had earlier perused, but had made a statement that what is stated in the Status Report was not to your knowledge and same was not shared with the Government. In fact, during the course of hearing, I was also called upon to show you those relevant paragraphs from the copy of the Status Report that was made available to me during the course of hearing by the CBI officials instructing me in the matter. The same was shown to you in Court.

The order dated 12.03.2013 records a prayer made by you Sir, for grant of some time to enable the Central Government to file an additional affidavit on the aspects which were earlier not dealt with in the counter affidavit already filed.

I am to further request you to recall your memory that I was asked to attend a meeting in your presence with the Hon’ble Law Minister to consider whether the CBI should disclose the status of investigation on an affidavit in compliance of the order dated 24.01.2013 or should a Status Report be filed. This meeting was attended by you Sir, besides Director CBI and Joint Director O P Galhotra amongst others. You will also recall that I had reiterated my position namely that the statement made and recorded in the order dated 24.01.2013 to make known to the Court the status of the investigation through an affidavit of a competent officer was made not only after due consideration and discussion held with me by the CBI officials only on 23.01.2013 prior to the hearing, but also on instructions received by me from them as well as the instructions reiterated to me in Court. Having reiterated my stand, I was a silent spectator when a decision was taken to file a Status Report instead of an Affidavit, which was to be shown to you as was decided in the meeting.

You will also kindly recall that on 6th March, 2013, while I was in Court, I received a message from your end, asking me to see the Law Minister at 12.30 with the Status Report. The message received by me was forwarded to the Joint Director, CBI by me. You were already present there when I reached slightly late. You would also kindly recall that at the said meeting, during the course of discussions, the draft of only one of Status Report of one of the preliminary inquiries was shown to the Hon’ble Law Minister and was perused by him as well as by you. Certain suggestions were made, including by you, to the CBI, some of which were accepted. No suggestions emanated from me. You will kindly further recall that as you wanted to leave, to attend Court for a mentioning matter, other status report of the investigations of the 9 regular cases were requested to be shown to you in the evening at about 4.30 p.m. I was also asked to be present at your residential office. After you left, I left shortly thereafter as I also had to attend hearing of amentioing matter at 2 P.M. In compliance of the above, the CBI officials brought the drafts which were perused and settled by you Sir. I was present in your residential office.

You had also asked me to mention the matter on 7th March, 2013 which was not possible for me on account of personal reasons. The matter was mentioned on 8th March, 2013 by me to seek permission to file Status Report in sealed covers. You had remained present during the mentioning. As a matter of fact, if my memory does not fail me, it was submitted by you that, the Status Report contains much more details than what could be made known to the Court by an Affidavit to be filed in compliance of the order dated 24.01.2013.

Despite the above facts while replying to the queries on 12.03.2013, as regards what was contained in the Status Report, you had deemed it appropriate to take a stand that the contents of the Status Report were not known to you, which fact you knew to be incorrect. On account of your statement, I felt embarrassed and was forced to take a stand, in Court, consistent with your submission made as Attorney General for India, that the contents of the Status Report were not known to you and that they were not shared with the Government.

It has constantly pained and anguished me that I have had to face unnecessary indignation on account of your intolerant temperament towards the conscientious discharge of duties especially in high profile cases. I have held you in great esteem as leader of our team but your flip flop attitude towards me has always put me under unnecessary pressure.

I have retained a copy of this letter in my office for my records. I have also deemed it appropriate to simultaneously send a copy of this letter to Hon’ble Law Minister.

I have a feeling that I am sought to be made scapegoat but I am confident that truth will always prevail.

Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
(Harin P Raval)