Tuesday, February 23, 1999
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Removal was coup, alleges
Bhagwat NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — The dismissed former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, who had promised to "reveal all" about the conspiracy which led to his removal from office the first time he would speak to the media, disappointed an expectant group of mediapersons at the Press Club of India today. Delhi SAD splits NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — The Delhi unit of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) split today with a section of leaders forming the Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi). |
 Sacked Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat addressing a meet-the-Press at the Press Club of India in New Delhi on Monday. — Photo by Vijender Tyagi.
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Quattrocchi told to appear
in court Nine
new faces in Orissa Cabinet Moderate
turnout in Delhi poll Jaya
cases: SC admits Tamil Nadu’s plea SC
seeks reply in six weeks |
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Removal was coup, alleges Bhagwat NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — The dismissed former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, who had promised to "reveal all" about the conspiracy which led to his removal from office the first time he would speak to the media, disappointed an expectant group of mediapersons at the Press Club of India today. Talking to the media for the first time since his dismissal, Admiral Bhagwat spitted fire, levelling allegations against the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, and even the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, of carrying out a "politico-military" coup. But he failed to give details of the "conspiracy" behind his removal. He alleged there was a strong nexus between the arms dealers and the officials of the Defence Ministry as a result of which appointments were being manipulated. But he had no answers as to what he had done on his own and before Mr George Fernandes took over as the Defence Minister to break this nexus which was said to be so strongly controlling the Ministry of Defence. Admiral Bhagwat, armed with sets of various papers and tapes of his conversations with various mediapersons during his tenure as the Chief of Naval Staff, tried hard to point out that he had done his best for the country as a soldier. He did not even spare the mediapersons present at the face-the-media programme, alleging that they had played into the hands of the Defence Minister. He referred to the written statement he had made on January 14 on his arrival at Mumbai and stressed again that he would not let things pass so easily. " I may be wounded, but I am not vanquished," he said and clarified that all options regarding his going to the Supreme Court against the government decision to sack him as the Chief of Naval Staff on December 30 last year were still open. Admiral Bhagwat alleged his dismissal and the appointment of the incumbent Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Sushil Kumar, was "grossly violative" of procedure and law. " This in nutshell is a politico-military coup carried out by the Defence Minister himself," he said. He alleged that in his removal the Defence Minister had subverted the military chain of command which actually constituted the most serious threat to national security. The undermining of military disciplinary framework constituted another major threat, he said. "Never in 50 years of our history has the subversion of the chain of military command been carried out in such a blatant manner — destroying the entire civil-military relationship, undermining the disciplinary framework of an armed force," Admiral Bhagwat said, He added he had not refused to implement the order of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), but that the order was "unimplementable". He said he had now not been in office for the past two-and-a-half months, but the order was still to be implemented. "So now who has not implemented and defied the ACC order," he asked? He said not once since assuming charge had Mr Fernandes sent for him to correct or warn him on any matter. "So in fact there was no record of repeated disagreement with the Minister. He found me inconvenient in regard to his illegal acts... whether giving a free run to people furnishing arms to insurgents for use against Indian people and the Army, appointing dishonest and racist officers, or defence purchases detrimental to indigenous projects", he alleged. Maintaining that he was dismissed "without due process", he said "no Appointments Committee of the Cabinet note has been prepared for selecting the new Chief of Navy Staff. No intelligence vetting has been undertaken...". He also handed over to the press a bunch of documents. Admiral Bhagwat was dismissed by the government for "deliberate defiance" and actions which threatened the traditional neutrality of the armed forces as well as on grounds of national security. The former Chief of Naval Staff also charged Mr Fernandes with having deliberately and in bad faith subverting the military chain of command and having used the media for a "witch hunt" first against Air Chief Marshal S.K. Sareen (retd) and then against himself. In an apparent bid to question the dependability of Mr Fernandes, Admiral Bhagwat claimed the Prime Minister’s Office had specifically asked the service chiefs not to inform the Defence Minister about the Pokhran nuclear tests on May 11 last year. "The chiefs were functionally informed of the Pokhran tests. They were formally told by the Prime Minister on May 9 and specifically told not to inform the Defence Minister. Mr Fernandes was only informed in the forenoon of May 11", Admiral Bhagwat said. In his opening remarks, he quoted the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary, Mr Brajesh Mishra, as having told him to convey to Mr Fernandes during a visit to the Andamans that the Defence Minister should be "moderate in his public stance on China". "Mr Mishra will of course deny it now", he quickly added. Admiral Bhagwat alleged
foreign intelligence operations were being carried on
with the help of arms agents but declined to answer
specific queries on details. |
Delhi SAD splits NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — The Delhi unit of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) split today with a section of leaders forming the Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi). Addressing a press conference here, the convener of the newly formed party, Mr Avtar Singh, said: "We are forming the Dal only for smooth working of Sikh shrines and ‘upgrading’ of the Khalsa Panth wherever required." Four members of the Delhi unit of the SAD (Badal) — Mr Paramjit Singh Sarna, Mr Harinder Pal Singh, Mr Nirwair Singh and Mr Avtar Singh — are members of the new party. Stating reasons for the formation of the party, Mr Avtar Singh said: "The actions of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, degrading the highest post of Akal Takht, has hurt the sentiments of Sikhs around the globe. This has forced us to come under a separate identity." Claiming that the party was not being formed at the behest of SGPC president, G.S. Tohra, the convener of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi) said "He would know about our decision only through the media." "Our actions are not to gain political mileage. "We will resist anyone who tries to undermine the authority of Akal Takht. The sanctity of the Takht cannot be degraded." Mr Avtar Singh, stating that their party would fight the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee poll: "If the Punjab Chief Minister retracts his steps and Bhai Ranjit Singh is reinstated as Jathedar Akal Takht, we are ready to work with him." The 11 members of the working committee of the party include Mr Basant Singh, Mr Sucha Singh, Mr Gurcharan Singh, Mr Bhajan Singh Walia, Mr Surjit Singh and Mr Lakhvinder Singh Bajwa. They would meet in the Capital in the coming days to finalise the party’s office-bearers, the convenor said. Earlier, 12 members of the 15-member executive committee of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee had expressed their opposition to the manner in which Bhai Ranjit Singh was suspended. Mr Avtar Singh claimed that the newly formed party was the largest representing the Sikh community in the Capital as a majority of members of the DSGMC were members of the outfit. On the Khalsa Panth
celebrations, he said: "These would take place only
under the leadership of Bhai Ranjit Singh." |
Quattrocchi told to appear in court NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — The Supreme Court today directed Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, accused in the Bofors case, to appear before the Special Judge, Delhi, dealing with the case on March 15. The Bench comprising Mr Justice G.T. Nanavati and Mr Justice S.N. Phukan directed the CBI not to arrest the petitioner on his arrival in India or during investigation. After the CBI investigation is completed, he should be permitted to go back, the court directed. Recording the statement of counsel for the petitioner, Mr Rajendra Singh, senior advocate, that Quattrocchi would have no objection in appearing before the court and execute a bond in regard to his appearance before the court as and when required in connection with the case and that he would cooperate with the investigating agency for interrogation while remaining in India for two weeks thereafter, the court passed the order. The court further observed, "Our orders shall not preclude the Special Judge to pass appropriate orders for his future appearance in the court". The court disposed of the
special leave petition filed by Quattrocchi with this
order. |
No compromises on PoK: BJP NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — Asserting that Pakistan occupied Kashmir is part and parcel of India, the BJP today described the "Lahore Declaration" on the conclusion of the Prime Minister's two-day visit to Pakistan, as a "major breakthrough". Hailing Mr Vajpayee for his "pathbreaking initiative", the BJP spokesman, Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu, said there could be no deviation from the unanimous resolution in Parliament that Pakistan occupied Kashmir was part and parcel of India. Mr Naidu condemned the
heinous killings of innocent people in Rajouri and said
that the party was glad that Mr Vajpayee told the
Pakistan Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, about it.
Outside interference should stop, he stressed. |
Nine new faces in Orissa Cabinet BHUBANESWAR, Feb 22 (UNI) — A 25-member Council of Ministers was today sworn in to join the Giridhar Gamang ministry in Orissa. Acting Governor C. Rangarajan administered the oath of secrecy to 12 ministers of Cabinet rank and 13 Ministers of State. Five Cabinet Ministers of the previous J.B. Patnaik Government were dropped. The Council of Ministers has nine new faces, while two former Ministers of State have been elevated to the Cabinet rank. Altogether 12 ministers have been dropped from the new Cabinet. The Cabinet Ministers sworn in today are Mr Basant Kumar Biswal, Mr Kanhu Charan Lenka, Mr Niranjan Patnaik, Mr Matlub Ali, Mr Raghunath Patnaik, Mr Jagannath Patnaik, Mr Netrananda Mallick, Mr Gajadhar Majhi, Mr Bhaghat Prasad Mahanty, Ms Saraswati Hembram, Mr Bhupender Singh and Mr Durga Sankar Patnaik. The Ministers of State are
Mr Debendra Nath Mansingh, Mr Padmalochan Panda, Ms
Usharani Panda, Mr Surendra Singh Bhoi, Mr Prasad
Harichandan, Mr Anant Ram Majhi, Mr Ripu Seth, Mr Parama
Pujari (all new), Mr Suresh Kumar Routray, Miss Vijay
Laxmi Sahu, Mr Prakash Chandra Debta, Mr Nabin Chandra
Narayan Das and Mr Haladhar Karjee. |
Moderate turnout in Delhi poll NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — Moderate turnout marked the paperless by-election for the Hauz Khas and Nangloi Jat Assembly seats in Delhi today. While the Hauz Khas constituency recorded 30 per cent of the polling, the Nangloi Jat Assembly segment recorded 40 per cent of the polling, officials at the Chief Electoral Office said. This was much lower than the over 50 per cent turnout during the November 25 assembly poll in Delhi. Barring an altercation at a booth in the Hauz Khas segment, polling was peaceful. The election office said till this evening, no formal complaint had been made about the incident. A fight had broken out between Congress and BJP workers in a booth and polling was briefly disrupted, the area police said. The polling, which started on a low key in the morning, picked up towards the afternoon. About 31 per cent of voters in Nangloi Jat and about 15 per cent of Hauz Khas voters had exercised their franchise by 2 p.m. While a Hauz Khas assembly segment fell vacant after the former Chief Minister Ms Sushma Swaraj, quit to retain her Lok Sabha seat, election to the Nangloi Jat constituency was adjourned following the murder of Ved Singh, a Samata Party candidate. Earlier, the police detained some persons in the Nangloi Jat Assembly constituency in the morning to prevent any untoward incident. The men were detained as they were moving in the assembly segment armed with hockey sticks and rods, the police said, adding that the arrested were being questioned. In the Hauz Khas Assembly constituency, enthusiasm amongst the voters seemed to be missing since very few turned up to cast their ballot. However, the voters faced little difficulty in using the electronic voting machines (EVMs). Mr Sridhar, a voter in the Hauz Khas segment, said: “It is so simple. No paper, no wrong folding or handling huge ballot papers. Just press the button and your vote is cast.” “Except, perhaps for the indelible ink on the forefinger, which made the whole exercise a little messy,” he added. Ms Kiran Walia, who has been renominated as the Congress candidate, is pitted against BJP’s Hari Shankar Gautam, in Hauz Khas. Devender Shokeen, the former Delhi Transport Minister, will contest against the Congress candidate, Mr P.C. Kaushik, at Nangloi Jat. Ved Singh’s mother Panweshwari Devi is contesting as the Samata Party candidate this time and is banking on the sympathy factor. A total of 25 candidates — 12 in Hauz Khas and 13 in Nangloi Jat — are in the electoral fray. The counting of votes for the two assembly constituencies will be held on February 24 at Talkatora Stadium where the EVMs used at the polling stations will be kept under tight security and the results are expected to be declared on the same day. A large posse of the Delhi police and paramilitary forces was deployed in Nangloi Jat Assembly segment. Four polling stations in Nangloi Jat had been identified ‘hypersensitive’ and eight ‘sensitive’. The results of the poll will not alter the seat arithmetic in the 70-member assembly, where the Congress is ruling with a majority of 51 seats. There are 1,09,546 voters
in Hauz Khas while Nangloi Jat has an electorate of
1,45,257. A total of 106 polling stations will be set up
in Hauz Khas and 158 in Nangloi. |
Jaya cases: SC admits Tamil Nadu’s plea NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (PTI) — The Supreme Court today admitted a petition of the Tamil Nadu Government challenging the validity of the recent notification by the Centre transferring all corruption cases against AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha from Special Judges to Sessions courts. A Division Bench comprising Justice G.T. Nanavati and Justice S.P. Kudukar, while admitting the petition filed by the state’s Advocate-General fixed March 8 for further hearing on it. Counsel for the Advocate-General, Fali S. Nariman said the Centre’s February 5 notification did not affect the state government’s April 30, 1997, order appointing three Special Judges to exclusively try 46 corruption cases against Ms Jayalalitha, some of her erstwhile Cabinet colleagues and certain bureaucrats as the latter was done with the consent of the Madras High Court. However, Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee contested the claim of Mr Nariman saying “not withstanding any other legal position, the central notification prevails over the state notification.” Mr Nariman said that as the state government’s April 30 order was supported by the Central Government during hearing of Ms Jayalalitha’s appeal in the Madras High Court against the appointment of three Special Judges, the present notification would have no legal sanctity. The Advocate-General of Tamil Nadu stated in his petition that “the February 5 notification issued by the Government of India do not in any way affect the group of cases (regarding to Ms Jayalalitha) which are already allocated by the state government on April 30, 1997, after consultation with the Madras High Court.” In the alternative, he requested the apex court to issue an appropriate order quashing or altering the central notification as it violated the basic structure of the Constitution which guaranteed independence of judiciary. The Central Government had issued the notification claiming that it alone had the power under Section 4(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act to order the transfer of cases from one court to another. The state government had
under Section 3(1) of the Act transferred the cases on
April 30, 1997, to the three Special Judges for a speedy
trial. |
SC seeks reply in six weeks NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — The Supreme Court today granted six weeks to the Union Ministries of Law and Finance to file a counter-affidavit in the SLP filed by Dr Neelima Shangla, CJM, Jind, challenging the raising of age limit to 45 for the first time for the post of Judicial Member, Customs, Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal (CEGAT). The petition came up for hearing before the Bench comprising Chief Justice A.S. Anand, Mr Justice M. Srinivasan and Mr Justice Santosh Hegde. Dr Neelima Shangla, who argued her case herself, submitted that under the Statutory Provisions of Section 129(2), Customs Act, there was no age limit and only 10 years’ experience as Judicial Officer was required. This time, the respondents had introduced Rule 3(3) enacted through a committee comprising three bureaucrats, overriding the statutory provisions of the Customs Act dealing with the eligibility criteria which could not be done legally by the respondents. She submitted that Section
129(2) of the Customs Act, being a statutory provision,
could be amended by Parliament only under Article 246 of
the Constitution and could be allowed to be over-ridden
and contravened by Executive Rule 3(3) of the CEGAT
(which has introduced the age limit). |
SC notice to Bihar Govt NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — The Supreme Court today issued notices to the Bihar Government on the bail petitions of eight accused in the multi-crore fodder scam. The notices, returnable within two weeks, were issued by the Bench comprising Mr Justice G.T. Nanavati, Mr Justice S.P. Kurudukar and Mr Justice K.T. Thomas. The court, however, refused to stay the trial in case of Mr Dhruv Bhagat, one of the eight accused, as prayed for by him. The other seven accused,
petitioners before the court, are Mr Chandra Chaudhury,
Mr Pramod K. Jaiswal, Mr Sanjay Kumar, Mr Naresh Prasad,
Mr Gopi Nath Das, Mr Sushil Kumar and Mr Mahendra Prasad. |
Man burnt to death NEW DELHI, Feb 22 — A 30-year-old man was found burnt to death this morning at his Pushp Vihar house in South Delhi. Delhi Fire Service officials said that Harbhajan Singh was found charred to death at his house. Two fire tenders were rushed to douse the flames. The police is
investigating the cause of the fire. |
Mid-day meal to MCD schools restored NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (PTI) — The Delhi High Court today asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to ensure that the mid-day meal supply in its schools, restored by the court’s order, was not stopped again. A Division Bench headed by Mr Justice Arun Kumar, disposing of a public interest writ petition seeking direction to the Corporation to restore the supply of mid-day meals in its primary schools, stopped last year, said the Corporation should check the quality of the commodity and take action against the supplier if hygienic standards were not maintained. The PIL filed by the All India Lawyers’ Union (AILU) was disposed of, after MCD counsel in an affidavit stated that the supply of meals in all MCD schools had been restored from February 12. MCD counsel Raman Duggal
told the court that the Corporation has made an
arrangement for the supply of “eggless cake”
for the time being and Rs 2 were being spent on each
child every day. |
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| 14-year-old boy clears MCP
test JAIPUR: A 14-year-old boy from Jaipur has become the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) in the country. The wiz-kid, Govind Jaju cleared the tough examination conducted by the international software giant, netting a high score of 87.2 per cent, a certificate issued by the company says. Govind, a B.Com-I student of Commerce College at University of Rajasthan, had earlier achieved the distinction of passing Senior Secondary Board Examination at the tender age of 13 years. — PTI Plan to privatise traffic
signals in AP Friedrich-Ebert
Award for Indian Four undertrials
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