Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav has backed Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi”s assertion that corporates paid crores as bribes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2013-14 and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into the same.

Lalu told ANI that Prime Minister Modi, who is now completely trapped, owes an explanation to the nation.

“Rahul Gandhi has alleged Aditya Birla and Sahara Group had given ₹40 crores to Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister is completely trapped and now he will have to give an explanation. If any BJP spokesperson comes up with justification on his behalf then that would be unfair,” he added.

The RJD chief further stated that the Congress vice-president wouldn”t have made such allegations against the Prime Minister without any proof.

“Without proof, Rahul Gandhi won”t say this…or any leader won”t accuse the Prime Minister of this. It proves that the Prime Minister was involved in corruption. I demand a Supreme Court-monitored probe in this regard,” he added.

Speaking in Gujarat”s Mehsana on Wednesday, Gandhi alleged that in the records with the Income Tax, there were nothings of Sahara officials” claims that they paid Prime Minister Modi nine times between October 2013 and February 2014 and that the total amount was ₹40 crore.

He also alleged that according to documents with the IT department, the Birla Group too paid ₹12 crore to the Prime Minister.

Seeking an independent inquiry, Gandhi said that he was raising the issue “on behalf of the country”.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: A Nigerian national was found in possession of about Rs 54 lakh in new notes today at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) here.

Officials said the incident was reported at about 2:30 AM when CISF personnel intercepted the Nigerian travelling to Coimbatore from here.

“He was allowed to travel after information was shared with tax and customs sleuths. A total cash of over Rs 58 lakh was detected with the Nigerian with Rs 53.78 lakh in new currency and Rs 4.29 lakh in old notes,” they said.

(PTI)

Mumbai: A day after the Reserve Bank withdrew the notification that barred people from depositing old notes in bank accounts more than once, the central bank on Thursday clarified that people are free to make more than one deposit till December 30.

The old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes can be deposited at bank branches or in cash deposit machines more than once till December 30, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in the updated Frequently asked questions (FAQ).

The customers should use separate pay-in-slips for making deposits in the mixed bunch of demonetised and legal tender notes, it said.

Anybody depositing more than Rs 50,000 in cash in their bank account needs to submit a copy of the PAN card in case the bank account is not seeded with the information.

The clarification on the part of the RBI comes a day after it took a U-turn on its notification of December 19 after widespread protests from the public.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had clarified the same evening on December 19 that one-time deposit would not attract any scrutiny by bankers. However, on Tuesday, he had insisted that only a one-time deposit would be allowed till December 30. On Wednesday, the RBI withdrew its norms on KYC deposits, but left it unclear whether multiple deposits would be allowed.

The RBI said that for non-KYC accounts, if a person deposits more than Rs 5,000 in withdrawn currencies, the account will be credited only after questioning him or her, in the presence of two bank officials, as to why the money was not deposited earlier. The bankers will also have to keep the explanatory statement on record for future audit trail.

Even if the non-KYC deposits are less than Rs 5,000 at a time but cumulatively exceed the amount, the bank officials have to get on record an explanation from the depositor of a non-KYC account.

The upper limit of deposits for such accounts is also restricted to Rs 50,000.

The above restrictions do not apply to deposits under the Taxation and Investment Regime for the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana.

(IANS)

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government is planning to provide Kannadigas 100% reservation in mainly blue-collar jobs in private sector industries across the state. The state labour department has released the draft amendments to the Karnataka Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Rules of 1961 to this end.

The 100% horizontal reservation for Kannadigas is meant for all private industries -except those in the infotech and biotech sector -that secure concessions under the industrial policy of Karnataka.

If industries do not follow these new guidelines, the government will cancel all concessions given to them. The amendments will be implemented once the law department gives its approval the second time.

Karnataka labour minister Santosh Lad said: “The amendment will give us the means to ensure that all private sector industries open their doors to us, to identify how many Kannadigas work in each company and rectify any discrepancies.”

The minister said the labour department may adopt a lenient approach if the companies employed Kannadigas to 70% of all whiteand bluecollar jobs or 100% of blue-collar jobs alone. “We’re not saying they have to pick a Kannadiga if there is none for the job. But we’re insisting that private industries employ Kannadigas as the first option,” he said.

The department also provided 5% reservation for a disabled person who is also a Kannadiga. The IT-BT (information technology-biotechnology) vertical has been exempted as they are not covered under the Karnataka Industrial Employ ment (Standing Orders) Rules of 1961 for a period of five years from 2014.

Sources in the labour department said the government did not want to hamper the “bread and butter” of the state GDP with the reservation policy . “We did not want to invite a problem with the powerful IT-BT lobby at this point in time. Let’s first implement this reservation and then take on the IT-BT vertical later,” a department official said.

The labour department has got the concurrence of Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah for the amendment, and the law department will vet the amendment once again before implementing it.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi Wednesday alleged that Sahara paid Rs 40 crore to Narendra Modi before he became prime minister. He claimed that when Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, he received multiple payments spread across 2013-14 from the company. Rahul claimed that when the Income-Tax department raided Sahara’s premises in 2014, they recovered documents showing that payments have been made to Modi between the months of October 2013 and February 2014.

“As per record with IT, Rs 2.5 cr was given to PM Modi on 30 Oct ’13; Rs 5 cr on 12 Nov ’13; Rs 2.5 cr on 27 Nov ’13; Rs 5cr on 29 Nov ’13. Entries showed Rs 5cr given to PM Modi on 6 Dec ’13; Rs 5 cr on 19 Dec ’13; Rs 5cr on 13 Jan ’14; Rs 5 cr on 28 Jan ’14; Rs 5 cr 22 Feb ’14,” Gandhi said.

Modi became prime minister in May 2014, after the National Democratic Alliance swept the Lok Sabha polls. During the Parliament Winter Session, Rahul claimed that he had evidence linking PM Modi directly with corruption. He also claimed that if he was allowed to speak in the Parliament it would cause an “earthquake” in the country. The Bharatiya Janata Party immediately rubbished the allegations, saying that Rahul is a “non-serious political leader”. “It become their (Cong) habit to level baseless allegations against PM. Rahul Gandhi is a part time non-serious political leader,” said BJP.

Addressing a rally in Mehsana, he continued his tirade against PM Modi over demonetisation. Rahul Gandhi said the government’s step is not against corruption or black money, but it was against the honest poor people. Gandhi said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demonetisation is not a surgical strike on black money, but against poor and honest people of the this country.” Talking about the difficulties faced by the farmers after demonetisation, Gandhi said, “A farmer does not purchase his seeds by cheque or card but in cash, you (PM Modi) have taken away that cash from them.”

He also said that the Congress would have supported the government if it had taken any step to eradicate corruption. “If Narendra Modi ji’s government take any big or small step to eradicate corruption, Congress party will support them,” said Gandhi. He also said that the prime minister had made fun of labourers in Parliament.

He also accused the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh of snatching the land of tribals. “The BJP ruled government in MP, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh is snatching the land of tribals. And when somebody stand for his right, they are being shot,” said Gandhi. “You kill Dalit here in Gujarat, they live in fear,” Gandhi added.

Hitting out at the government over scrapping of high value notes, Gandhi reiterated that all cash is not black money and all black money is not in cash. Referring to the writing off of Vijay Mallya’s loan by the government, Gandhi said, “Modi ji cannot bring back money taken as loans by 1% rich people and hence he is using money of poor to waive of this bad debt. When Switzerland government has given you the list of names of people having black money deposited in Swiss bank, why are you not disclosing their name in Parliament.”

(IANS)

Mumbai: Under all-round attack, the Reserve Bank today did a U-turn on customers depositing demonetised notes over Rs 5,000 till December 30 by making it clear that there will be no questions asked either in case of one-time or repeat deposits if the accounts are KYC-compliant.

Such customers will also not be questioned by bank officials on why they had failed to deposit the old notes earlier.

The RBI turnaround came as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s assurance on Monday night and yesterday that there will be no questions asked to customers who would make one-time deposit above Rs 5,000 failed to persuade bank officials who insisted that there should be fresh circular from RBI so that customers will not be harassed.

However, customers with non-KYC accounts will be subject to stiff conditions imposed by RBI on December 19 for deposit of junked notes.

The decision follows widespread criticism of the guidelines, with people saying the Prime Minister as well as the finance minister have asked people not to throng the banks as they have time till December 30 to deposit invalid notes in their accounts.

On review of the guidelines, RBI decided to modify the old currency deposit rules for fully-KYC compliant customers, an RBI notification said today.

The December 19 notification of RBI had said tenders of old currency in excess of Rs 5,000 into a bank account will be received for credit only once during the remaining period till December 30, 2016.

“The credit in such cases shall be afforded only after questioning tenderer, on record, in presence of at least two officials of the bank, as to why this could not be deposited earlier and receiving a satisfactory explanation. The explanation should be kept on record to facilitate an audit trail at a later stage,” it had said.

Replying to queries on curbs on deposit of old currency notes by RBI, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday had said people should go and deposit the now-defunct notes at one go as repeat deposits raise doubt.

“Today, there are no exemptions… Now, there is no further scope of earning old currency. So, those who have got old currency must go and deposit at one go,” he had said.

“Therefore, if somebody goes everyday and deposit old currency, it raises suspicion. How is he getting everyday? As long as exemptions existed, there was scope for getting old currency. But once the exemptions have been lifted, if you have old currency, go and deposit at one go.”

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Several new and large discrepancies have emerged in the stated positions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the government on the printing and distribution of new currencies following the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes on November 8.

These discrepancies include a highly unlikely surge in the supply of high-denomination notes in two days. They also show substantial divergence in figures given by the central banker and those given by the government in Parliament. And finally there’s an unexplained hiatus in the supply of notes for 11 days.

Either Parliament has been misled, or claims about the supply by the RBI are flawed.

Let’s look at the figures in chronological order:

On November 28, the RBI issued a press release saying that the public had withdrawn Rs 2.16 lakh crore in new notes from accounts or ATMs till November 27. As RBI chose not to give any break-up of this amount, it is fair to assume that some of this was in lower denomination notes of Rs 100 or less.

However, according to a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State for Finance, Arjun Ram Meghwal, categorically stated that, by November 29, a total of 1,608 million pieces (160.8 crore) of Rs 2,000 denomination and 156 million (15.6 crore) pieces of Rs 500 had been supplied — a total of 1,764 million pieces (or 1.76 billion) amounting to a little over Rs 3.29 lakh crore. The minister’s reply came on December 6.

There are two significant points to note here:

One, that the government’s number implies that the currency disbursal had shot up by over Rs 1.13 lakh crore in just two days. This, when the RBI had supplied Rs 2.16 lakh crore in 17 days till then — at an average of only Rs 12,700 crore a day.

Moreover, Meghwal’s number pertained only to high denomination notes, whereas the RBI number was a mix of all denominations. In other words, the discrepancy between the two sets of numbers would have been even higher if the minister’s reply in Parliament had included the smaller denomination currency notes disbursed till November 29.

Now things begin to get even more curiouser.

On the day the monetary policy was announced (December 7), the RBI revealed a new set of disbursal figures. The Deputy Governor of RBI, R. Gandhi, said a total of Rs 4 lakh crore had been disbursed as of the previous day.

Of this amount, Rs 1.06 lakh crore was in smaller denomination currency notes, according to Gandhi, while the rest — Rs 2.94 lakh crore — implicitly, was by way of high-denomination notes.

This figure of Rs 2.94 lakh crore, which was announced seven days after the date of disbursal given in Parliament reply, is substantially less than the amount of Rs 3.29 lakh crore mentioned in the minister’s written statement about supply till November 29.

Yet again, on December 12, Gandhi, while speaking to reporters, said that a total of 1.7 billion notes of higher denomination of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 had been issued to the public till December 10.

That means, a full 11 days after Meghwal’s reply that 1.76 billion high-value notes had been disbursed by November 29, the RBI was stating that the notes given out had been less or at best the same — if one assumes that he was giving a rounded-off figure of 1.7 billion.

(IANS)