Bengaluru: Unaccounted cash of about Rs 2.4 crore stashed in a box in a persons car was found on the premises of Vidhana Soudha — the state secretariat– here, police said on Friday.

The cash was unearthed by the Vidhana Soudha security officials during a routine security check this afternoon, a Cubbon Park police station official said.

The owner of the car, Siddharth, was being questioned, the official said.

“Right now we are not in a position to say anything on this count. We have brought Siddharth to the Cubbon Park police station and we are interrogating him,” the official added.

To a question whether the unaccountable money was meant to be handed over to a minister as was being speculated, the police official said, “We are also looking into it… the interrogation is on.”

(Agencies0

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court, on Thursday, summoned beleaguered liquor baron Vijay Mallya to appear before it on November 24 for allegedly violating an undertaking given by him and his companies, not to transfer their equity shares in United Breweries to Diageo Plc.

A division bench comprising justices Jayant Patel and Aravind Kumar gave the direction on petitions by a consortium of banks. The banks have accused Mallya of violating the undertaking given by him and his companies, including Kingfisher Airlines, not to transfer their equity shares in United Breweries Holdings Limited (UBHL) after Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT) had restrained Standard Chartered Bank, with which the shares had been pledged, from handing over the same to Diageo Plc. The DRT, in its order last year, had restrained Standard Chartered Bank from transferring to Diageo Plc or anyone else, the equity shares of United Breweries Holding Limited (UBHL) pledged by Mallya and his son Siddharth with the bank. In their pleas, the banks alleged that despite the earlier order by DRT, Standard Chartered Bank was in the process of transferring to Diageo Plc the equity shares.

Diageo Plc, the world’s largest spirits maker, which acquired control of United Spirits (USL) in 2012, had issued a guarantee to Standard Chartered Bank for a $135 million (around Rs 877 crore) loan to Watson Limited, a firm affiliated to Mallya, to release certain UBHL shares that were to be acquired as part of the deal. The company, in a statement earlier, had said the risk had arisen due to default by Watson in May and DRT preventing sale or any other transfer of such UBHL shares in June as part of the enforcement process pending further orders following the petition by bankers.

The banks had also said that the very pledging of the shares by Mallya was illegal. Mallya, whose now-defunct group company Kingfisher Airlines owes over Rs 9,000 crore to 17 banks, had left the country on March 2 and is in the UK. He has been declared a proclaimed offender by a special PMLA court in Mumbai on a plea by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with its money laundering probe against him in the alleged bank loan default case.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Social activistTeesta Setalvad has moved theSupreme Court to intervene in the ongoing debate over nexus between candidates and religious leaders and sought a ban on the use of “Hindutva” interchangeably with Hinduism in elections.

Setalvad along with retired professor and theatre activist Shamsul Islam and journalist Dilip C Mandal moved a joint intervention application before a 7-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur requesting reconsideration of a December 1995 SC judgement that had ruled that `Hindutva’ was a way of life and could not be equated with any religion.

The current petition would affect BJP directly as the party has held up the SC ruling in support of its claim that it is not seeking votes on religious lines and is rather advocating a cultural identity and nationalism.

The court had ruled that the use of Hindutva during elections could not be held to be a corrupt practice to invite disqualification of a candidate: a determination which was celebrated by the BJP which swears by Hindutva, calling it a cultural concept derived from the civlisational ethos of the country . The pending petition related to disqualification of a candidate for using speeches of Bal Thackeray and Pramod Mahajan seeking votes in the name of Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra in the 1990 Maharashtra assembly elections. The HC had disqualified the candidate for falling foul of Section 123(3) of Representation of the People Act, which bans use of religion, caste, community and language as a tool to garner votes.

Disputing the SC’s 1995 ruling that `Hindutva’ is a way of life, the applicants requested the court to decide -“Whether a candidate who contests on the ticket of a political party which in its manifesto appeals to `Hindutva’ as being the political agenda of the party , is not thereby guilty of corrupt practice within the meaning of Section 123 in as much as he has consented to and subscribed to the manifesto of that party?” Setalvad and her co-applicants said that the ruling “had the effect of encouraging political parties to use religious appeals for garnering votes under the colour of the proposition that Hindutva is not a religion but a way of life”.

“This has had devastating consequences leading to demands of homogenisation and assimilation of minority communities and SCST in the `Hindutva’ way of life.Hindutva has become a mark of nationalism and citizenship. Such an interpretation has curtailed the faith in secularism, which is a basic feature of the Constitution,” the petition said.

Setalvad, a known opponent of RSS and BJP who has accused PM Narendra Modi of complicity in 2002 Gujarat riots, and two others severely criticised the NDA government’s governance, alleging that since coming to power, it has made free thinkers and those upholding Constitutional values feel insecure and put “India at crossroads”.

“For the past two years, articulation of a narrow, supremacist variety has engendered a deep feeling of insecurity for minorities, free thinkers, atheists and all those who uphold the Constitutional ideal of an India meant for all, irrespective of caste, creed, gender, politics or faith. The applicants, who are public intellectuals committed to peace, social harmony and social justice, seek to put certain key perspective before the Supreme Court,” it said.

“India is at crossroads today , at the educational and cultural level, and in terms of interpretation of the law, too, narrow and supremacist interpretation of history , culture, social studies and the law threaten how the fundamentals of Indian nationhood are, in future conceived and built,” the petition said.

“Tendencies to approach these rich and vast areas of the social sciences through narrow interpretations of `faith’ and `mythology’ threaten to stifle academic pursuit and scientific temper essential to a modern nation in the 21st century . Disturbing portents in Indian public life -seeking to justify customs and practices on the ground of their being from the `Shashtras’ or `Sharia’ -are equally worrisome and condemnable,” it said.

They also requested the SC to decide two other important questions -“Whether subscribing to the manifesto of a political party which calls for formation of a `Hindutva State’ is not deemed consent on the ground of religion of the candidate?” and “Whether an appeal by a candidate for a `Hindutva State’ is not an appeal for a theocratic state and therefore, ultra vires the basic feature of the Constitution?”

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Supreme Court today froze all financial transactions between the BCCI and state cricket associations by directing the apex cricket body not to disburse any funds, even for the match purposes, to them till they resolved to abide by the Justice R M Lodha panel recommendations on reforms.

The apex court also directed BCCI president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke to give undertaking on affidavit, before the Lodha panel and in apex court by December 3, stating how much time they would need to implement reforms.

A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur and comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and L. Nageswara Rao asked Lodha panel to appoint independent auditors to scrutinise all BCCI accounts.

The judgment, which was pronounced by Justice D Y Chandrachud, also directed the Lodha panel to ask the auditors to scrutinise the high-value contracts given by BCCI.

It directed the Lodha panel to fix a ceiling of high- value contracts of BCCI to be scruutinised by the auditors.

The bench also asked the panel secretary to send a copy of the apex court order to the ICC chairman Shashank Manohar.

(Agencies)

Mumbai: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday assured full support for the release of Karan Johar’s movie “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” said film producer Mukesh Bhatt, according to reports.

Mukesh Bhatt, President of the Film & Television Producers Guild of India, who met with the Home Minister said Rajnath Singhji assured us 100% support and that he would convey to all Chief Minister’s to maintain law and order during the release of the movie.

The movie ”Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” directed by Karan Johar is in trouble due to call by MNS to ban Pakistani artiste.

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil features Pakistani artiste Fawad Khan.

(Agencies)