Archives for April 2017

Agra: A Bajrang Dal leader from Agra has announced a cash reward of Rs 1 lakh for “anyone who can bring the head” of former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah.

Govind Parashar dubbed Abdullah anti-national for allegedly defending insurgents, who had attacked security forces recently.

Parashar, is the city chief of Gau Raksha cell of the Bajrang Dal.

He hogged media attention even in the past when he claimed to have unfurled Indian flag on Lal Chowk in Srinagar.

“The way the Indian defence personnel are being targeted by locals in Kashmir valley has caused resentment amongst citizens. These incidents of insulting our army jawan have been condemned by all, cutting across party and ideological lines,” Parashar said.

“Yet the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir chose to defend those pelting Indian soldiers with stones and attacking them,” he said. “This is anti-national act and should not be tolerated at any cost.”

Apart from announcing the bounty, he also demanded of the government to take appropriate action against such leaders and declare them anti-national.

(Agencies)

Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday directed for personal appearance of Sahara chief Subrata Roy before it after finding that he has failed to deposit Rs 5000 cr.

A three- judge bench presided over by Justice Dipak Misra also appointed Bombay HC as the official liquidator for auction of Sahara’s Amby Valley properties in Lonawala.

“We are now inclined to go ahead with auction of Amby Valley,” the bench, also comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and A K Sikri said, after noting Roy failed to deposit Rs 5000 cr as directed earlier.

The court ordered the Sahara chief to provide all necessary information about the properties to the Bombay HC within 48 hours.

On Sahara counsel senior advocate Salman Khurshid’s plea that the group had got only got shares in Amby Valley, the bench said then Roy should be ready to go to jail. The bench reminded him that he cannot now resile from his affidavit that the properties worth Rs 34,000 cr belonged to you.

The court directed for presence of Roy on April 28 i e the next date of hearing.

The court said the group cannot be shown concession for its failure yo deposit money to Sahara-Sebi account.

(Agencies)

Islamabad/New Delhi: India today demanded from Pakistan a certified copy of the charge-sheet as well as the judgement in the death sentence of its national Kulbhushan Jadhav and sought consular access to him.

Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad Gautam Bambawale met Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua in connection with the case of Jadhav, who has been given death sentence by a Pakistani military court for alleged spying.

“I have asked for a certified copy of the charge-sheet as well as the judgement in the death sentence of Kulbhushan Jadhav,” Bambawale said.

“They have denied our request for consular access 13 times (in the last one year). I have again requested the Pakistan Foreign Secretary to give access to Jadhav so that we can appeal,” he said.

Sources in New Delhi said apart from diplomatic options, India will also explore legal remedies permitted under Pakistan legal system including Jadhav’s family appealing against the verdict.

Pakistan’s top military Generals yesterday decided not to make any “compromise” on the death sentence given to Jadhav.

The decision was made at a Corps Commanders’ conference presided over by Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

The death sentence to Jadhav, 46, was confirmed by army chief General Bajwa after the Field General Court Martial found him guilty of “espionage and sabotage activities” in Pakistan.

Pakistan claims its security forces had arrested Jadhav from the restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. It also claimed that he was “a serving officer in the Indian Navy.”

The Pakistan Army had also released a “confessional video” of Jadhav after his arrest.

India had acknowledged that Jadhav had served with the navy but denied that he has any connection with the government.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had warned that Jadhav’s execution will be taken by India as a “pre-meditated murder” and Pakistan should “consider its consequences” on bilateral relations, if it proceeds on this matter.

(Agencies)

Bengaluru: Police raid Ex Corporater, Rowdy-Sheeter ‘Bomb Naga’ aka Nagraj’s residence at Srirampura in Bengaluru.

Nagaraj is accused of running a money-laundering business. The police raided his residence this morning following prior information of his involvement in money laundering business post demonetisation.

The police have so far collected over Rs 100 crore. All the money found were in the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and the search for more in underway.

Nagaraj is also suspected of being involved in multiple incidents of kidnapping and extortion.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: The Income Tax department has identified over 60,000 “high risk” persons for probe under the second phase of the ‘Operation Clean Money’ which was launched today to detect black money generation post demonetisation. The CBDT said the category of people who will undergo “detailed investigations” as part of the next phase of the operation include businesses claiming cash sales as the source of cash deposits, like petrol pumps and other essential services like hospitals, which is found to be excessive compared to their past profile or industry norms during the notes ban period.

It will also probe those government or Public Sector Undertaking employees who made “large cash deposits”, people who have undertaken high value purchases, those who “layered” or laundered funds by using shell companies and those who did not respond to taxman’s queries under the first phase of the said operation. A senior officer said there is no threshold of deposits that has been identified under the latest operation and all suspicious and similar inter-related transactions have been chosen and brought under it.

“The deposits under scrutiny of the latest operation are no doubt high value ones,” he said. The officer added that while the initial communication to these 60,000 people will go via the online medium, the taxman will also undertake search and survey action and also seek physical documents from the assessee as part of the operation. The threshold under the first phase of the operation, that began on January 31 and ended on February 15, was kept at deposits made to the tune of Rs 5 lakh and above.

“More than 60,000 persons, including 1,300 high risk persons have been identified for investigation into claims of excessive cash sales during the demonetisation period. “More than 6,000 transactions of high value property purchase and 6,600 cases of outward remittances shall be subjected to detailed investigations,” the CBDT, policy-making body of the department, said in a statement. “All the cases where no response is received shall also be subjected to detailed enquiries,” it added.

The CBDT said the complete exercise of examining “all the doubtful and non-tax compliant accounts” may take more than an year to complete but with the help of technology and continuous enforcement action all the liable accounts will be brought to task. The latest operation has been initiated based on “identification” of huge cash deposits through use of advanced data analytics “including integration of data sources, relationship clustering and fund tracking”.

The CBDT said the taxman also undertook “extensive enforcement action” of search, survey and seizure post demonetisation and has detected undisclosed income to the tune of Rs 9,334 crore between November 9 and February 28. “More than 2,362 search, seizure and survey actions have been conducted by the department…leading to seizure of valuables worth more than Rs 818 crore, which include cash of Rs 622 crore and detection of undisclosed income of more than Rs 9,334 crore,” it said.

“More than 400 cases have been referred by the tax department to the Enforcement Directorate and the CBI. Surveys have been conducted in more than 3,400 cases by assessment units,” the statement added. The demonetisation of two high value currencies of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 last year.

Under the first phase of the operation, it said, 17.92 lakh people, who entered into cash transactions that did not appear to be in line with their tax profile, were contacted via the online medium. “Online queries were raised in 35,000 cases and online verification was completed in more than 7,800 cases,” it said, adding the department has decided to close the verification in cases where explanation of source of cash was found to be justified.

“In cases where the cash deposit has been declared under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY), the verifications would also be closed,” it said. The ‘Operation Clean Money’, the CBDT said, is being conducted by the tax department through use of advanced data analytics allowing “optimisation of government resources and causing minimum inconvenience to the taxpayers”.

It added that the impact of government action is already visible in the increase of 21.7 per cent in the returns of income received in Financial Year 2016-17. Sixteen per cent growth in gross collection was seen, the highest in the last five years, 14 per cent growth in net collection- the highest in last three years and above 18 per cent, 25 per cent and 22 per cent growth in personal income tax, regular assessment tax and self-assessment tax respectively.

The statement said the demonetisation exercise was aimed at the “elimination of black money that casts a long shadow of parallel economy on our real economy” and the latest operation is one of the major steps aimed to achieve this goal and also widen the tax base.

(Agencies)

Nanded: Taking a bizarre stand on farmers’ suicide, independent MLA from Maharashtra Bacchu Kadu sparked controversy by dragging Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha MP Hema Malini into the row.

Dismissing claims that alcoholism was responsible for farmers’ suicide, Kadu said, “Hema Malini drinks everyday, but does she commit suicide?”.

Speaking at a press conference in Nanded, Maharashtra, Kadu said even the notion that farmers commit suicide due to burden of excess expenditure on marriages is incorrect. Detailing the argument he said, “ All these reasons are nonsensical. Gadkari spent Rs. four crore on his son’s wedding. So should we now wait for him to commit suicide?”

Maharashtra has been grappling with severe farm crisis and reports farmer suicides almost every other day. Nearly 90 lakh farmers have been impacted by the drought , official data shows.

As many as 3,228 farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra in 2015 , according to data tabled in the Rajya Sabha on March 4, 2016–that is almost nine farmers every day. Vidarbha and Marathwada, with 5.7 million farmers, accounted for 83% of all farmer suicides in Maharashtra in 2015

The real cause, Kadu said, was the is lack of money. “Professor Swamninathan always said that farmers’ produce is increasing but not their income,” he said.

RJD leader Lalu Prasad had earlier courted controversy by ‘promising to make the roads in Bihar ‘as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks.’

(Agencies)