The toll due to consumption of spurious liquor in the Malad area of Mumbai climbed to 94 with the death of four more persons on Sunday.
In a furious post on his blog, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Arun Jaitley on Tuesday slammed the Congress for allegedly using the Excise Department to impose a tax on the mammoth rallies addressed by the saffron party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
These builders had collected the taxes from prospective buyers but had failed to deposit them.
Empty bottles of liquor were discovered inside the premises of the legislature in dry Bihar, in a fresh embarrassment to the Nitish Kumar government in the state, which has been drawing flak over recent hooch tragedies that have claimed more than 40 lives.
"We have raided and destroyed poppy crops in 24 acres of land under the Imamganj police station," Omprakash Singh, a senior official of the Excise Department, told rediff.com. Singh said the Maoist had cultivated opium to make money for their illegal activities and continue their operations against the police.
Dr Zaheed Qureshi said that when his daughter Shabana married Sameer Wankhede, the latter practised Islam, and would occasionally visit mosques.
At least 22 people died and seven others were taken ill after consuming spurious liquor in several villages of Mubarakpur area, leading to suspension of six policemen on Friday on charges of laxity.
The government allowed sugar companies and distilleries to make hand sanitizers using ethanol. Sugar companies supply ethanol to oil marketing companies for blending with petrol.
In a relief to two-wheeler major Hero Honda Motors, a tax tribunal has ruled in favour of the company in a case filed by the Excise department for alleged duty evasion to the tune of Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million).
With 13 more deaths, the toll in the hooch tragedy in several villages of Mubarakpur area of Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday climbed to 35 even as Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav took serious note of the incident and suspended five excise department officials.
Liquor shops reopened across the country in the non-containment zones after 40 days from Monday with people queuing up in large numbers, giving social distancing norms a toss at some places.
The order, issued by the Home Department, will come into effect only after guidelines are finalised, said a senior official.
Shockingly, students of various schools and colleges were clients of Hyderabad drug peddlers.
Post-mortems of 16 more suspected hooch victims were conducted here in the last two days, raising their number to 87, but authorities on Wednesday kept the official death toll in tragedy pegged at 35.
While the two-phased assembly polls voting has concluded in Assam, in West Bengal two phases have completed while four more remain.
The Central Excise Department said it has slapped service tax of Rs 6 crore on the Preity Zinta co-owned KPH Dream Cricket, which is part owner of IPL franchise Kings XI Punjab.
A foreign national has been arrested by Pakistani security agencies in connection with the car bomb blast outside the house of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind and chief of the banned Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Hafiz Saeed in Lahore, according to media reports.
In one of the highest such compensations, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday granted Rs one crore financial assistance to the family of a Delhi police constable who was allegedly beaten to death by suspected liquor mafia in Ghitorni area of South Delhi last week.
'Daswand' -- or the receiving of donations of one-tenth of a devotee's earning -- has landed self-styled spiritual guru 'Nirmal Baba' in trouble with a notice having been slapped on him for alleged Service Tax evasion of Rs 3.5 crore.
The Election Commission has deployed 36 observers for monitoring the flow of illegal cash and other inducements during the upcoming assembly polls in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura. The officials have been deputed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (Income Tax department) and Central Board of Excise and Customs (Customs and Excise department) and will act as Election Expenditure Observers, a senior Revenue department official said.
Doctors said the decision was a medical blunder.
The Andhra Pradesh Anti-Corruption Bureau has arrested nine more excise officials in Khammam district on charges of "subverting" the tender process for allotment of liquor shops for pecuniary benefits, the ACB officials said on Friday.
A trip to purchase books for the exam of sub-inspector in the excise department proved to be the last outing of Vijay Kumar, who was among the five students killed in the twin blasts in the city.
"This year during the three days of Formula one, 1.15 lakh bottles of beer were consumed by the fans at various liquor outlets who had got licences for the event," said Kuldeep Yadav, District Excise Officer.
The condition of over two dozen people admitted in various hospitals in Etah and Saifai, after they consumed the spurious liquor, was stated to be critical.
Deaths in the worst-ever hooch tragedy in West Bengal continued unabated on Friday with the toll touching 171 amidst fears of more casualties as authorities suspended the excise officer-in-charge for dereliction of duty.
Puri Jagannadh also gave his blood sample.
Janata Dal-United MLC Manorama Devi faced an arrest warrant on Wednesday for violating prohibition laws and allegedly harbouring her fugitive son.
The Maharashtra government plans to extend timings of the bar counters at star hotels especially to facilitate foreign tourists, a senior state excise official said.
'Singh is complaining that politicians are summoning Waze after bypassing him.' 'But Singh is himself undermining the hierarchy within his force by interacting directly with Waze.'
A large number of labourers of two tea estates of Golaghat and Jorhat districts had fallen ill after drinking spurious liquor on Thursday night.
Five years after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar imposed total prohibition in Bihar, the liquor mafia continues to thrive, reports MI Khan.
Record sugar output has also yielded molasses production way beyond market demand and plant capacity of state distilleries and country made liquor units
Poll violence has so far claimed two lives in West Bengal and left 371 persons injured in 398 incidents, the Election Commission said on Monday.
'With more and more young people relocating outside their home states for work, an all-India MLDA of 21 would be a good way to ensure that more Indians can go with the flow,' recommends Kanika Datta.
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam and the Union Territory of neighbouring Puducherry are likely to go to polls in April or May.
On behalf of Manorama Devi, advocate Qaiser Sarfuddin filed the bail petition in the court of (in-charge) District Judge S N Singh who posted the matter for hearing on Monday.
To place orders, customers need to complete an instant age verification by uploading a picture of their valid government ID, followed by a selfie which the platform will use for authentication.
According to sources in the Excise department, the Sahara Airlines, while submitting opinion of its Chartered Accountant on service tax, had allegedly backdated it to 2003 in which it was stated that Rs 1442 crore (Rs 14.42 billion) income from advertising services provided to its group company was not taxable under advertising services.
Darul Uloom, Deoband, has upheld a 'fatwa' against Ashraf by a Patna-based Shariat committee, which asked the minister to relinquish his post. Soon after Ashraf was assigned the registration and excise department by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on April 13, 'Imarat-e-Sharia' in Patna had asked Ashraf not to hold the ministry, which dealt with something that was haram (prohibited) in Islam.
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