Dalmiya
faces misappropriation charges
MUMBAI/KOLKATA,
Mar 24: Three
years after he was voted out of the BCCI, former
cricket board chief Jagmohan Dalmiya faced
charges of misappropriation of Rs 2.90 crore over
which the Mumbai Police will be filing a
chargesheet on Wednesday.
Acting on a case
filed by the BCCI in March 2006 after Union
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar took over as
head of the game’s governing body, the
Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has found that
Dalmiya diverted funds meant for legal fees
towards other expenses, including paying for
personal phone bills.
Joint Commissioner
of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria said today that
Indian Income Tax authorities had slapped 64
cases on Pilcom’s account operated from
London. Pilcom was the organising committee of
the 1996 cricket World Cup hosted jointly by
Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.
The Crime Branch
will be filing a chargesheet against Dalmiya,
Gautam Dutta and K M Choudhary in the matter on
Wednesday in a local court, he said.
Dalmiya termed the
move to file a chargesheet against him by the
Mumbai Police as an off-shoot of "the old
game plan of my adversaries".
"Whenever
something happens in cricket politics, they
resort to such action to settle scores with
me," the seasoned cricket administrator told
in Kolkata, apparently refering to his presence
at a Cricket Association of Bengal special
general meeting last month.
"I don’t
wish to comment on speculative matters. If what
the media says is right then I can only say that
it is the old game plan of my adversaries",
Dalmiya said.
BCCI president
Sharad Pawar denied that the current regime was
"vindictive" and said that the law will
take its own course in the case.
"If someone
has done something wrong, the law will take its
course. We will not interfere," Pawar said.
Dalmiya and the
two others will be charged with cheating, breach
of trust, forgery and criminal conspiracy, Maria
said, adding that the probe in the matter is
still on and it is possible more persons will be
named in the chargesheet.
Dalmiya had
appeared before the EOW officers four times in
Mumbai while the investigators had gone to
Kolkata two times for recording his statement
during the course of the probe, Maria said.
"Six accounts
were created to meet the expenses of fighting the
cases and this misappropriation concerns only one
of them opened in Kolkata in which Rs 6.92 crore
was deposited," Maria added.
Dalmiya, who was
the BCCI president for over ten years,
misappropriated the funds to pay for phone bills,
hotel bills, car rentals, purchasing foreign
exchange and stationery, he said.
"Of the Rs
2.90 crore, Rs 85 lakh has been diverted towards
phone bills only. Dalmiya has been found to have
paid his personal phone bills, one registered in
his mother’s name and phone bills for three
companies run by him," he added.
Maria said an
investigation of the car rentals led the Police
to discover that the registration numbers of the
cars supposedly used by the BCCI actually
belonged to some trucks and motorcycles.
"According to
Dalmiya, necessary resolutions were passed so
that the funds in the account can be used for
other expenses but they have been unable to
furnish the necessary copies. Also,
(Dalmiya’s secretary) K M Choudhary was
found to have been operating the account which
has to be done by Dalmiya only," Maria
said.(PTI)
80 new
HIV cases in J&K
SRINAGAR, Mar 24: Eighty new cases of HIV
have been detected in Jammu and Kashmir till
March 15 this year, taking the total number of
people detected with the HIV to 1,210 in the
State so far.
"So far 1,210
cases of HIV/AIDS have been reported in Jammu and
Kashmir. The number was 1,130 last year,"
State AIDS Prevention and Control Society
Director M A Wani said here today.
He said 92 per
cent of the victims were in the age group of
20-50 years.
"Although the
number of HIV cases in the Valley is very low,
the growing number of Intravenous Drug Users
(IDUs) pose a major challenge," he said.
"Kashmir has
thousands of IDUs. The IDUs alone make up more
than four per cent AIDS cases in India," he
said adding 250 IDUs have been identified in
Srinagar.
He said the SAPCS
has so far short listed six NGOs to help the IDUs
in de-addiction and sanctioned projects to some
of them.
"As far as
creating awareness among people is concerned,
Jammu and Kashmir tops the charts. We have been
able to achieve 88 per cent success, 17 per cent
above the national percentage of 61," Wani
said.
He said Jammu and
Kashmir Board of School Education has also
decided to include a compulsory paper on AIDS for
the 9th standard and have at least one question
on this topic in the final exams for 10th
standard.
Wani said the
SAPCS had already trained clerics, teachers and
students to educate people at the grassroot
level.
He said, "we
have covered about 70 per cent of higher
secondary schools and 90 per cent medical staff,
including doctors. They work as ambassadors of
our project." (PTI)
Gillani
orders release of Judges
ISLAMABAD, Mar 24: Yousuf Raza Gillani was
today expectedly elected Pakistan’s new
Prime Minister by Parliament and he quickly
ordered the immediate release of Judges detained
after President Pervez Musharraf clamped
emergency last year.
Moments after the
55-year-old Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)
stalwart from Punjab was chosen as
Pakistan’s 22nd Prime Minister, Gillani in
his maiden speech to the national Assembly also
pledged that he will seek to pass a resolution
for a UN-led probe into PPP leader and former
Premier Benazir Bhutto’s assassination last
December.
In a one-sided
contest, Gillani bagged 264 votes in voting in
the 342-seat national Assembly trouncing Chaudhry
Shujaat Hussain, the opposition candidate, who
got just 42 votes. There were several
abstentions.
The PPP stalwart
will be sworn in tomorrow by Musharraf at a
ceremony at the Aiwan-e-Sadr or Presidency at
1130 IST.
"I order all
the detained Judges to be released
immediately," said Gillani, who spent five
years in jail during Musharraf’s regime for
alleged corruption charges.
The incoming
coalition’s pledge to reinstate Judges
threatens to be a potential flashpoint with
Musharraf. The military ruler had dismissed about
60 Judges of the superior judiciary and several
of them, including former Supreme Court Chief
Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, are still
under house arrest.
Gillani, who will
lead the coalition Government formed by the PPP
and its allies PML-N, Awami National Party and
Jamiat Lema-e-Islam, said "my first step is
to ask the national Assembly to pass a resolution
seeking a UN-led inquiry into mohtarma Benazir
Bhutto’s assassination on December 27,
2007." Musharraf has before rejected
PPP’s demand for UN probe.
Gillani’s
announcements were greeted by loud cheers from
the visitors’ gallery packed with PPP
supporters and thumping of desks by the treasury
benches.
The Premier-elect
also asked the House to pass another resolution
apologising to the nation for the "judicial
murder" of PPP founder and former Premier
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
His announcements
sparked slogans of "go Musharraf go"
from the galleries, and the PPP workers did not
stop shouting the slogans despite repeated
requests from Speaker Fehmida Mirza. She had
earlier declared Gillani as the winner after
saying "Yousuf Raza Gillani commands the
majority of the members. Please come forward and
take the seat of leader of the House."
Gillani also said:
"I will request the Judges to resolve their
problems through the Parliament because I think
the Parliament is the supreme body of this
country."
The announcement
of Gillani’s victory by the Speaker
immediately led to PPP workers in the
visitors’ gallery shouting slogans like
"long live Bhutto" and "go
Musharraf go". Benazir Bhutto’s
19-year-old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who was
made PPP chairman after her death, broke down and
wept in the VIP gallery.
Gillani then went
to the gallery and shook hands with Bilawal
before beginning his address to the national
Assembly.
"We have paid
a heavy price for the restoration of democracy.
Democracy has been ushered in due to sacrifices
made by mohtarma Benazir Bhutto," he said.
"We will not
compromise on the country’s dignity,
self-respect and honour,he added.
"This is a
historic moment and it was not gifted to us. It
came after a long struggle by workers and
political forces and we do not want to lose this
moment," Gillani said, adding "I invite
all political forces to join us and help us
tackle the major problems confronting the
country."
The challenges
before Pakistan can be tackled through the
"consensus of the people and political
forces" and not by any individual, Gillani
said.
"If this
country is to be governed, there must be
supremacy of Parliament and the Constitution and
rule of law," he added.
Gillani said the
policies and programmes for the first 100 days of
the new Government will be announced after he
obtains a vote of confidence from the House.
"I am not the
Prime Minister, I am a servant of Pakistan. I
want the cooperation of all from the Opposition
and treasury benches for the development of the
nation," he said.(PTI)
Stock
exhausted, no decision about procurement
PDD's e-metering drive hits
roadblock
By Mohinder Verma
JAMMU,
Mar 24: The much hyped drive to install
electronic meters at all the domestic as well as
commercial electricity connections across the
State has again hit the road-block, second time
within a period of one and half years, due to the
lack of Government’s far-sightedness about
this reformative scheme.
Under the
prevailing situation, the Power Development
Department (PDD) has to shelve its drive for
unspecified period at a time when the
installation of electronic meters in the district
and tehsil headquarters was about to gain
momentum.
Official sources
told the EXCELSIOR that PDD has exhausted all its
stock of electronic meters and presently it
doesn’t have required number of meters to
carry on the reformative scheme in the district
and tehsil headquarters apart from left-over
areas in the twin Capital cities of the State
where it has just taken up.
"Before the
start of e-metering drive in the district and
tehsil headquarters like R S Pura, Kathua,
Hiranagar, Udhampur, Batote and Kishtwar besides
left over areas of Jammu city in this region, the
requirement of large number of electronic meters
was projected before the Procurement Wing of the
PDD and subsequently the tendering process was
set in motion", the sources said.
Four companies
took part in the tendering process and their
samples were sent to Central Power Research
Institute (CPRI) at Bhopal to check their
quality. However, the sample of only one company
was approved by the authorities of CPRI.
But, the company
whose sample was approved, was not given go ahead
signal to supply e-meters due to the tedious
financial rules which say that there should be
proper competition after the approval of samples
by the CPRI. However, in the present case there
is no competition, the sources disclosed and said
that this has resulted into reformative scheme
holding hostage by the financial rules second
time within a period of one and half years.
"It is still
not known whether the Procurement Wing of PDD
will go in for re-tendering or seek the
intervention of Government for a Cabinet memo
about purchase of meters", the sources
disclosed, adding "the prevailing
uncertainty can be a blessing in disguise for the
consumers in the areas where the drive has just
begun".
From the present
prevailing circumstances, it can be easily
presumed that the Government has not learnt any
lesson from earlier set-back to the reformative
scheme and never gave any serious thought to
continue the drive without any break, the sources
said.
It is pertinent to
mention here that as against 5.27 lakh
connections across the Jammu province, the PDD
has covered only 1.6 lakh connections since the
start of drive in 2004-05.
According to the
sources, the Minister for Power Babu Singh has
expressed serious concern over the set-back to
the e-metering drive and made it clear to the
Procurement Wing of Power Development Department
that there should not be any delay in the process
of procuring required number of e-meters.
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