Archives for April 2021

CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal on Monday sought a probe into the use of a private ambulance by Punjab police for ferrying gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari from jail to a court last week.

This ambulance has now been found abandoned near Rupnagar”, Shiromani Akai Dal (SAD) leader Daljit Singh Cheema said.

He claimed all this has lent credence to the assertions of the Uttar Pradesh police that the Punjab government was “in cahoots” with Ansari and that there were “orders from the very top to facilitate him in every manner possible.”

“There cannot be any other answer as to why the Punjab Police allowed Ansari the use of a private ambulance which had been registered on the basis of fake documents.

This could be part of a bigger conspiracy which needs to the unearthed by a free and fair probe by a central agency,” Cheema said in a statement here.

The ambulance, which was used to ferry Ansari to a Mohali court was found abandoned outside a roadside eatery at Chandigarh-Nangal highway in Punjab’s Rupnagar district on Saturday.

The BSP MLA from Mau, who is wanted in Uttar Pradesh for various cases, was taken in the ambulance from Rupnagar jail to a Mohali court in connection with an alleged 2019 extortion matter on March 31.

A case was registered in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki after the documents of the ambulance were found to be fake and one person was arrested on Monday.

The opposition Shiromani Akali Dal had earlier accused the Punjab government of giving “political shelter” to Ansari by keeping him in Rupnagar jail as a “state guest” on “trumped-up charges”.

The Supreme Court had recently directed the Punjab government to hand over the custody of Ansari to the Uttar Pradesh Police within two weeks after which a UP police team left for Punjab on Monday.

The suspect payment was detected by French anti-corruption agency, Agence Française Anticorruption (AFA), during audit, revealed Mediapart.

NEW DELHI: The newly inducted Rafale fighter jets flew into a fresh storm with a French online journal claiming that manufacturer Dassault Aviation paid 1 million euro to an Indian middleman as gift after the Rs 58,000 crore government-to-government deal in 2016 for 36 jets for the Indian Air Force.

It identified the recipient as Defsys Solutions, a group run by a Gupta family, including Sushen Gupta, who has been under investigation over his role in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam.

The report kicked up a political storm with Congress demanding a thorough probe and the BJP rejecting charges of corruption as completely baseless.

AFA inspectors came across the suspect payment of 508,925 euros under the head gifts to clients, for which Dassault produced an invoice from Defsys.

Mediapart, citing the AFA report, said, “This invoice, which related to 50% of the total order (1,017,850), was for the manufacture of 50 (mega sized) models of the Rafale C, with a price per unit of €20,357.”

Chief Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala claimed that the report has proved that there was corruption in the biggest defence deal, and asked why action should not be taken against those involved, including Dassault Aviation, for violating the defence procurement procedure, which clearly entails that there will be no middlemen.

Hitting back at the Congress, BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad dismissed as “completely baseless” the allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal and said the opposition party made a big issue of the defence deal in 2019 Lok Sabha polls but lost badly.

The Supreme Court had rejected a demand for a probe in the purchase of the fighter aircraft and the CAG also found nothing wrong, Prasad said.

The allegations of corruption were “completely baseless”, the minister said, and suggested that a report in the French media about the alleged financial irregularity in the deal may be due to “corporate rivalry” in that country.

According to the Mediapart, its report was based on an investigation by the country’s anti-corruption agency Agence Francaise Anticorruption (AFA), which found that after inking the deal, payment was made by the Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale fighter jets.

As per the report, the manufacturer has not been able to answer the queries posed by the AFA.

There was no immediate reaction from the Defence ministry on the French media report.

Surjewala said their leader Rahul Gandhi’s oft-repeated allegations of corruption in the deal were proved correct now.

He said as per the French portal’s report, an investigation conducted AFA has revealed that after signing of the deal in 2016, Rafale’s manufacturer Dassault allegedly paid 1.1 million euros to Defsys Solutions, which is an Indian company.

“Does it now not require a full and independent investigation into India’s biggest defence deal to find out as to how much bribery and commission in reality, if any, was paid and to whom in the Indian government,” he asked at a press conference.

“Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi answer to the nation now?” he asked.

In his counter-attack, Prasad said,”the Congress is raising the Rafale issue again. It lost in the Supreme Court. They campaigned in the 2019 polls on the Rafale issue, threw all kinds of abuses at the prime minister and still lost. How many seats did it get.”

The minister also noted that Sushen Gupta, the middleman whose name has cropped up in the French report on the Rafale deal, was arrested in the AgustaWestland case by the Enforcement Directorate in 2019.

In this probe, the names of many Congress leaders had surfaced, Prasad said and accused the Congress of trying to “weaken” the security forces.

The Indian Air Force received a fleet of fighter aircraft in Rafale after 30 years, he said, adding that had it been there during the time of the Balakot operation to target terrorists in Pakistan then Indian aircraft would not have to cross the borders to carry out the strike.

The Congress leader said the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) as also the stated Indian government policy envisage that there will be an Integrity Clause in every defence purchase contract which clearly states that there can be no middleman or payment of commission or bribe.

Surjewala said that as per the DPP, any evidence of middleman or commission or bribery has serious penal consequences including the banning of the supplier, cancellation of contract, registration of an FIR and imposition of heavy financial penalties on the company.

“Has it not vitiated the Rafale deal entailing imposition of heavy financial penalties on Dassault, banning of the company, registration of an FIR and other penal consequences,” he asked, while citing the example of Agusta Westland chopper deal where the CBI has already initiated action.

He asked whether the payment of 1.1 million euros shown by Dassault as ‘Gifts to Clients’ in reality a commission paid to the middleman for the Rafale deal.

“How can middleman and payment of commission be permitted in a government-to-government Defence Contract or in any Defence procurement in India in violation of the mandatory Defence Procurement Procedure,” he asked.

The Congress leader alleged that “India’s biggest defence deal involving the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from the Dassault Aviation is a sordid saga of ‘loss to public exchequer, squandering national interests, propagating the culture of crony capitalism and shrouded in secrecy by negating the mandatory aspects of procurement.

” Alleging that there was lack of transparency and opaqueness in this government, Surjewala claimed that the Prime Minister went ahead and purchased the aircraft without following any procedure, and has also refused to submit himself to an investigation.

The government did not provide full documents to the CAG, he claimed.

“India has a no middleman, no commission stated policy. Why can’t the present Prime Minister order an impartial investigation now, so that we know who in his Government took the bribe and the commission and how many thousand crores, if any,” he said.

Asked what would be the next step of the Congress, he said, “we will wait for next 48 hours for the Government to react and then take the next step.

LUCKNOW: With a fresh surge in Covid-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh, the state government has clamped Section 144 of CrPC across 75 districts to prohibit the assembly of five or more persons. In addition, the District Magistrates of Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad in the National Capital Region have issued a set of instructions in consonance with the guidelines released by the state health ministry.

All containment zones in Noida will be brought under the new guidelines and a strict implementation of the same will be implemented. Meanwhile, the Ghaziabad administration has issued an order stating that entry into malls, hotels, restaurants and crowded places in the district will be controlled through issuance of tokens.

According to the Ghaziabad district Administration, shops, theatres, malls, hotels, restaurants and crowded places will be under strict vigilance and only a limited number of people will be allowed to enter these places at a time. Those waiting for their turn to enter the premises will have to follow social distancing. 

It will be the responsibility of managements of hotels and other establishments to ensure that social distancing is followed by the visitors. The administration has said if its order is not followed then strict action will be taken against the owner of the establishment. 

NCR districts issue fresh guidelines to battle coronavirus

• On detection of a single Covid case, 20 houses in the vicinity have to be quarantined as containment zone and if more than one case emerges, then 60 houses in the locality would be made a containment zone
• If a Covid case is detected in one floor of the building In a multi-storey complex, then the entire floor will be declared a containment zone. If more than one floor comes under scrutiny, then the entire block or tower will be converted into a containment zone
• The Ghaziabad administration has issued an order stating that entry inside malls, hotels, restaurants and crowded places in the district will be allowed only after issuing tokens to control the crowd

A decision to this effect was taken during a high- level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and also attended by Deputy CM Nitin Patel at Gandhinagar, said an official release.

AHMEDABAD: To cope up with the rising number of coronavirus cases in Gujarat, the state government on Monday announced to open eight new COVID-19 care centres, each having 500 beds, in eight major cities.

These eight care centres to accommodate coronavirus patients will be put under the direct supervision of specially designated IAS or IFS officers, said the release.

Private nursing homes and clinics with no ICU or ventilator facilities can also start dedicated health centres and care units for COVID-19 patients in their premises, it said.

To ensure uninterrupted supply of medical oxygen for critical COVID-19 patients, the state government has asked oxygen manufacturers in the state to keep 60 per cent of their stock reserved for hospitals and allowed them to sell the rest to industries, the release said.

In the coming days, people can buy Remdesivir injection, a crucial drug in COVID-19 treatment, from medical stores attached to the four government hospitals of Ahmedabad, including Sola Civil Hospital and SVP Hospital, it said.

The state government will supply these injections on “no profit no loss” basis, said the release.

In another decision, the government announced that triple-layered face masks will be made available at all APMCs and Amul parlours at just Re 1 per piece in the coming days.

The daily addition of COVID-19 cases in Gujarat breached the 3000-mark for the first time as 3,160 people were detected with the infection in the last 24 hours, taking the state’s tally to 3,21,598, an official said on Monday.

The death toll increased by 15 to touch 4,581, while 2,028 people getting discharged from hospitals took the recovery count to 3,00,765, which is 93.52 per cent of the caseload, he added.

The number of active cases in the state is 16,252, which is a rise of over 1,000 cases in a single day, the official pointed out.

“Ahmedabad led with 773 new cases, followed by 603 in Surat, 283 in Rajkot, 216 in Vadodara etc. During the day, seven patients died in Surat, six in Ahmedabad, and one each in Bhavnagar and Vadodara,” he said.

A state government release said 67.62 lakh persons had been administered the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 8.10 lakh had got the second dose.

In neighbouring Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, 27 cases were reported in the last 24 hours, taking the caseload to 3,743.

With the recovery count rising by 21 to touch 3,534, and the deaths remaining at two so far, the active caseload in the Union territory was 207.

Gujarat COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases 3,21,598 new cases 3,160, deaths 4,581 discharged 3,00,765, active cases 16,252 and people tested so far – figures not released.