Saturday, June 16, 2012

Cash-for-bail case: Accused judge's son, retired judge arrested

Cash-for-bail case: Accused judge's son, retired judge arrested:

Cash-for-bail case: Accused judge's son, retired judge arrested

Reported by Uma Sudhir | Updated: June 16, 2012 18:45 IST
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Cash-for-bail case: Accused judge's son, retired judge arrested
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has arrested two people accused in the cash-for-bail case, in which a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court judge Pattabhi Rama Rao was accused of accepting bribes running into crores of rupees for granting bail to former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy who is accused in the Obulapuram mining case being investigated by the CBI. The two people arrested include a retired judge TV Chalapathi Rao, said to be a long-time associate of Pattabhi Rama Rao, and also the son of Pattabhi Rama Rao, Ravichandra.

Mr Rao, who was the First Additional Special Judge for CBI cases in Hyderabad, had granted conditional bail on May 11 to the mining baron while rejecting the bail to suspended IAS officer Y Srilakshmi, another accused in the Obulapuram mining case.

Mr Reddy, however, did not walk out of jail because he was at that time in a Bangalore jail in connection with another mining case allegedly involving Associated Mining Corporation (AMC) and Deccan Mining Syndicate (DMS) owned by him and his wife Aruna Lakshmi.

The Andhra Pradesh High Court on May 23 had suspended Mr Reddy's bail.

Following a tip-off that there was a conspiracy to bribe and grant bail to Mr Reddy, the CBI conducted searches and recovered uptoRs. 1.6 crore from five bank lockers belonging to Pattabhi Rama Rao. The High Court on May 31 suspended Mr Rao amid allegations of illegal gratification and corruption against him. 

The CBI lodged a complaint with the ACB on June 8 that G Somashekhar Reddy, brother of Gali Janardhan Reddy, G Dasaratha Ram Reddy, TH Suresh Baabu, T Aditya, Advocate, TV Chalapathi Rao, a retired judge, Pattabhi Rama Rao former first Additional Special Judge, CBI and others entered in conspiracy to show official favour and grant bail to Gali Janardhan Reddy who was arrested on September 5 from Bellary and had committed criminal misconduct.
 
The CBI had recovered Rs. 1,60,20,000 from five lockers after seizing the keys from Ravi Chandra, son of Pattabhi Rama Rao. The CBI also seized Rs. 1,14,16,000 from T Balaji Rao, brother of Chalapathi Rao, said to be a friend and old associate of Pattabhi Rama Rao.

The ACB had registered cases under section relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Prevention of Corruption Act 1988. Today the houses of Pattabhi Rama Rao, Chalapathi Rao, TST Saibabu and E Uma Maheshwar Rao at Hyderabad and P Srinivas Rao, Chilakaluripet, Guntur District were searched and incriminating material was reportedly found.

Janardhan Reddy and his brother-in-law B V Srinivas Reddy, who is the managing director of the Obulapuram Mining Corporation (OMC), were arrested on September 5, from Bellary in Karnataka and brought to Hyderabad. The CBI had filed a chargesheet against the Reddys and three others in December last.

The OMC is accused of changing mining lease boundary markings between Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and indulging in illegal mining in the Bellary Reserve Forest areas, spread between Bellary district of Karnataka and Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.

The bail order was subsequently set aside by the Andhra Pradesh High Court and the bail plea has been sent to the lower court for being taken up afresh.

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Friday, June 15, 2012

Former Goldman Sachs director convicted in NYC - Yahoo! News

Former Goldman Sachs director convicted in NYC - Yahoo! News:

Former Goldman Sachs director convicted in NYC

By TOM HAYS | Associated Press – 2 hrs 7 mins ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Goldman Sachs board member Rajat Gupta lived the American Dream before being led astray by a wealthy friend who was a master at insider trading.
That was the view of two jurors who on Friday voted with 10 others to convict Gupta of three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy for sharing corporate secrets with hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam.
With the verdict, Gupta became the most prominent defendant convicted so far in a wide-ranging Wall Street inquiry conducted by investigators armed with wiretaps.
Prosecutors had alleged that Gupta's tips gave Rajaratnam an edge over ordinary investors on trades of more than 350,000 shares of Goldman stock in 2008.
Rajaratnam, the billionaire founder of the Galleon hedge fund firm who was convicted last year, "was a very manipulative man," juror Rick Lebkowski said after the verdict. "He made it very easy for Mr. Gupta to give him this information."
Recordings of Rajaratnam and Gupta casually chatting on the phone convinced juror Ronnie Sesso that Rajaratnam "was a savvy and sneaky man. ... He was a little snake in the grass."
Gupta — born in India, educated at Harvard and well-respected on Wall Street — was "a wonderful example of the American Dream," Lebkowski said. "I wanted to believe the allegations weren't true." But on the counts the jury found Gupta guilty, "the evidence was overwhelming," he added.
The jury reached a not-guilty verdict on two other securities fraud counts after less than two days of deliberations at the insider trading trial in federal court in Manhattan.
In a statement, FBI Assistant Director Janice K. Fedarcyk called the conviction "the latest milestone in an FBI initiative undertaken in 2007 to zero in on illegal conduct in the hedge fund industry."
Added Fedarcyk: "Rajat Gupta broke the law, plain and simple."
Gupta, 63, of Westport, Conn., left the courthouse on Friday without speaking to reporters. He had sat motionless while the verdict was read, but his adult daughters could be heard weeping. As the courtroom emptied, they hugged their father.
Defense attorney Gary Naftalis called the outcome a disappointment.
"We believe the facts of this case demonstrate that Mr. Gupta is innocent," he said. "He always acted with honesty and integrity."
Allegations that Gupta conspired with a convicted white-collar criminal represented a fall from grace: The defendant is a former chief of the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. and a onetime director of the huge consumer products company Procter & Gamble Co. He also won admirers, including author and spiritual leader Deepak Chopra, with his philanthropy.
Gupta's stellar reputation began to unravel at last year's trial of Rajaratnam, when Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein testified that Gupta appeared to have violated the investment bank's confidentiality policies. Less than a month after Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years in prison, Gupta was charged in a separate case built on the some of the same wiretap and other evidence.
During the trial that began on May 20, the government again highlighted a Sept. 23, 2008, phone call it said was made from Gupta to Rajaratnam. The call came only minutes after Gupta had learned during a confidential conference call about how Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway planned to invest $5 billion in Goldman — a blockbuster deal that wouldn't be announced until the stock market closed at 4 p.m.
"That news was going to be very good news for Goldman Sachs," prosecutor Richard Tarlowe said in closing arguments. "The average ordinary investor had no way of knowing that. ... Until the announcement, it was confidential."
Records showed that moments after the phone call ended at 3:55 p.m., Rajaratnam purchased $40 million in Goldman stock — an 11th hour trade that ended up making him nearly $1 million.
The hedge fund manager's assistant, Caryn Eisenberg, testified at trial that it was the only call her boss received on his private line that day between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.
"That evidence is devastating for the defendant. ... If you believe Ms. Eisenberg, it's over — the defendant is guilty," Tarlowe said.
Also played at trial was a wiretap of a July 2008 phone call during which Rajaratnam grilled Gupta about whether the Goldman Sachs board had discussed acquiring a struggling bank, like Wachovia, or an insurance company.
"Have you heard anything along that line?" Rajaratnam asked Gupta.
"Yeah," Gupta responded. "This was a big discussion at the board meeting."
In another recorded phone call in 2008, Rajaratnam told one of his traders that he had got a tip "from someone who's on the board of Goldman Sachs" that Goldman was facing an unexpected quarterly loss.
Prosecutors argued the sequence of events — the phone calls, the subsequent trades and Rajaratnam's boasting about his inside connection — could not be dismissed as mere coincidence. Gupta, they said, was motivated to help Rajaratnam because he had a financial stake in some of the hedge fund manager's business ventures.
"What was good for Raj Rajaratnam was good for Mr. Gupta," said another prosecutor, Reed Brodsky.
Naftalis countered that most the evidence was specific to the "secret world" of Rajaratnam that had nothing to do with Gupta.
"I sometimes wondered whether Raj Rajaratnam was the man on trial," he said. His client, he added, was a victim of "pure guilt by association."
The most serious charge against Gupta, securities fraud, carries a maximum term of 20 years. Sentencing was set for Oct. 18.

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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Congress govt 'killed' the Bofors case: Arun Jaitley: CNN-IBN Videos

Congress govt 'killed' the Bofors case: Arun Jaitley: CNN-IBN Videos:

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Saturday, April 28, 2012

Bangaru Laxman gets 4 yrs in jail, fined Rs 1 lakh: CNN-IBN Videos

Bangaru Laxman gets 4 yrs in jail, fined Rs 1 lakh: CNN-IBN Videos:

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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

President Pratibha Patil grabs 261000 sq ft of land meant for soldiers and officers - Moneylife Personal Finance site and magazine

President Pratibha Patil grabs 261000 sq ft of land meant for soldiers and officers - Moneylife Personal Finance site and magazine:
President Pratibha Patil grabs 2,61,000 sq ft of land meant for soldiers and officers
April 11, 2012 07:20 PM | Bookmark and Share 
Vinita Deshmukh

An RTI activist from Pune, Col Suresh Patil (retd) remarked, “Dr Rajendra Prasad donated his land to Vinoba Bhave and here we have Pratibhatai Patil taking away the land for of her own men

Consider this: Eight hundred jawans of the Territorial Army (TA) are presently posted in Pune but there is residential accommodation for only 14. This being a family posting (a bonanza offered after a harsh field station posting), each jawan desires to bring his family, otherwise left behind in his hometown, when he is guarding the nation’s frontiers, often in a challenging geographical terrain. However, due to lack of official accommodation, a jawan is asked by his seniors to refrain from getting his family to Pune. Those jawans who decide to get their families to Pune nevertheless, live in slum-like conditions in one-room dwellings, near the Pune cantonment, with no drinking water facility.  In addition, paucity of residential accommodation for hundreds of soldiers and officers in the Indian Armed Forces in Pune is causing great inconvenience to the families.

Now consider this: Pratibha Patil, president of India and the supreme commander of the armed forces is building a palatial home for herself on a whopping 261,000 sq ft of land in Khadki Cantonment in Pune (out of which the bungalow occupies about 4,500 sq ft). The land belongs to the defence. It will now have a fortified home, the construction of which is nearing completion.

The president is eligible for only 2,000 sq ft bungalow in any part of the country if he/she wants the government to hire a home for him/her, after retirement. Otherwise, he/she is entitled to a government-owned Class V bungalow (around 4,500 sq ft) if it is available.  He/she is not eligible to builda home on government land. Some former defence personnel from Pune who are campaigning against this illegality are taking strong objections to the fact that Ms Patil is constructing her house on government land, when hundreds of jawans and officers are facing official accommodation crisis.

This revelation under the Right to Information (RTI) Act was procured by Col Suresh Patil (retd) and founder of Justice for Jawans (JFJ), RTI activist Anup Awasthi and Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) who are campaigning against Ms Patil’s ‘snatching’ away land meant for soldiers andofficers.

The RTI application was sent to the president’s office. As per the reply, under the President’s Emoluments and Pension Act, 1951 and rules framed under the President’s Pension Rule, 1962, “where suitable government residence is not available for allotment to a retired president, the size of the residence to be taken on lease to be provided to a retired president shall have a living area not exceeding 2,000 sq ft”.

“A place where government-owned accommodation is allotted to a retired president, the size of the residence is comparable to a residence allotted to a minister in the Union council of ministers and if the highest type of government residence available as a particular place is less in size than a residence allotted to a minister in the Union council of ministers, the highest type of accommodation available at that place shall be allotted to the ex-president. At present, a minister is entitled to a plinth area of the bungalow as 4,498 sq ft”.

The reply under RTI also stated that she is eligible to drinking water and electricity supply, free of cost, throughout her life.

States commander Ravindra Pathak, member of the IESM and who invoked the RTI, “taking away more than 2.5 lakh sq ft of defence land is sheer looting by Ms Patil. We are sending a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to take up the case suo moto. We have no money to pay for lawyers’ expenses.”

Col Suresh Patil (retd) elaborates, “Two defence bungalows have been pulled down to make way for Ms Patil’s bungalow and the vast expanse of land, over 2 lakh sq ft has been fortified for her. We are saying that let her keep the 2,000 sq ft she is entitled to and give away the remaining land for constructing official accommodation for soldiers and officers. Otherwise, there are numerous bungalows in the three cantonments of Pune and she could have been given accommodation in one of these.”

No other president has made such claims for personal gains, alleges Col Patil. He adds says, “Dr Rajendra Prasad donated his land to Vinoba Bhave and here we have Pratibhatai Patil taking away the land for of her own men—after all she is the supreme commander of the armed forces.”

RTI in this case provided information but who’s going to tie the proverbial bell round the cat? Hence, we need a strong anti-corruption law.

(Vinita Deshmukh is consulting editor of Moneylife. She is also an RTI activist and convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book “To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte” with Vinita Kamte. She can be reached at vinitapune@gmail.com)

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Sunday, April 8, 2012

Tatra case: Rishi's money trail leads CBI to UK - India News - IBNLive

Tatra case: Rishi's money trail leads CBI to UK - India News - IBNLive:

India | Updated Apr 08, 2012 at 09:46pm IST

Tatra case: Rishi's money trail leads CBI to UK 

CNN-IBN
New Delhi: The CBI is looking into the payments made by defence PSU BEML to Tatra Sipox UK for the supply of all terrain trucks and plans to send judicial request to the United Kingdom seeking details of its financial transactions and ownerships.
The agency suspects that payments from BEML were actually going to a tax haven, CBI sources said, adding that they are probing into it but added that the investigations are in preliminary stage.
The sources said at present they are likely to send Letters Rogatory to the UK seeking information on financial transactions of Tatra Sipox UK in which Vectra Chairman Ravinder Rishi has been a Director, owning substantial shares.
The agency will also demand details of Tatra Sipox UK's association with Czech-republic based Tatra a.s, they said.
Rishi has refuted allegations of any wrong doing and is said to be co-operating with the agency during his questioning sessions during last week, the sources said.
The CBI is now focusing on the role of officials of Defence Ministry, BEML and army and may question them in connection with the case soon, they said.
The sources said it was in 1997 that Tatra Sipox UK signed the truck supply deal with BEML which was in alleged violation of defence procurement rules which say that procurement should be done directly from original equipment manufacturer only.
The CBI has alleged that since Tatra Sipox UK was not the original manufacturer of these all terrain trucks, the rule that defence procurements should be made from original
manufacturer was violated.
Meanwhile, Czech Republic-based Tatra a.s. had said in a statement that it supplies for India various truck components ("CKDs") that make up approximately 30 to 35 per cent of a complete vehicle.
"The remaining components are made or supplied by other manufacturers or by BEML, an Indian government controlled company that also assembles the Tatra branded vehicles and then sells and delivers them to customers within India under license agreement for Tatra a.s," it had said in a statement.
It had also stated that neither Ravi Rishi nor his investment company Vectra Limited, control or have controlled -- directly or indirectly -- Tatra a.s. "The British company Vectra Limited is a minority stakeholder in Tatra holdings and in principle holds one of
the four votes.
"Nonetheless, Tatra will request from Mr Rishi and Vectra Limited an explanation of the information about any initiated investigation of him and Vectra Ltd by Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as it relates to sales of products branded with the 'Tatra' name," it had said in a statement.
(With additional inputs from PTI)

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