The Government on Friday managed to have its way in the Joint Parliamentary Committee on 2G scam when the panel approved the draft report giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram with a 16-11 vote in its favour.
AAP leader Vijay Nair, arrested in connection with alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy case, received Rs 100 crore in 'kickbacks' from the 'south group' controlled by some businessmen and politicians, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has informed a local court.
Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma allowed Sisodia to withdraw the interim bail applications.
Within six months, outlets carrying Vicks jumped from 60,000 pharmacies to 750,000 general stores. The trade boycott collapsed. Consumers were happy, finding Vicks now at every street corner. A fascinating excerpt from Gurcharan Das's Another Sort of Freedom.
Kejriwal said that it has been alleged that a bribe of Rs 100 crore was taken, but he asked where was the money.
Not quitting, says Tejashwi Yadav. Accuses Prime Minister Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah of 'conspiracy'.
It was a multi-million rupee scam whose extent and reach are still being unravelled, so why did the chief of the scam-tainted Saradha group Sudipta Sen plead that he was unable to pay Rs 30,000 as bail fee? Where could all the money have gone? Indrani Roy finds out.
Special Judge M K Nagpal fixed May 12 for consideration of the charge sheet after the CBI submitted that the prosecution sanction against Sisodia has already been procured from the competent authorities.
According to sources, Kavitha was to be made to sit face-to-face with Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, who was arrested in connection with the liquor policy case on Monday night.
The CBI has completed its probe against former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and others in 2G scam and will approach the Centre for taking sanction for prosecution, the agency told the Supreme Court.
A bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi said it will hear the petitions of the BRS leader and others after three weeks.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear on March 24 a plea by K Kavitha, Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader and daughter of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, seeking protection from arrest and challenging the summons by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case arising out of the alleged Delhi excise policy scam.
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested Aam Aadmi Party leader and former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on money laundering charges in connection with alleged irregularities in the Delhi excise policy, official sources said.
Officials said the agency may ask the chief minister about the policy formulation process especially of the "untraceable" file which was earlier slated to be put before the Council of Ministers.
Addressing a press conference a day after the CBI raid against him, Sisodia expressed apprehension that the agency or the Enforcement Directorate (ED) may arrest him in the next 3-4 days, while Chief Minister Kejriwal, who has been aggressively taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party in Modi's home state, announced on Twitter that he will be touring Gujarat with Sisodia from Monday.
The CBI has alleged that Singh had transferred funds through hawala channels to Chariot Media that was handling the AAP's publicity campaign during the Goa elections, the officials said.
'Streaming will get to 100-200 million subscribers, but the journey is not as rose-tinted.'
Amid controversy over the finance ministry's note to the Prime Minister's office (PMO) on awarding licences for 2G spectrum in 2008, a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) is holding a two-day meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Reinstated in service in June 2020, he was handling several high-profile cases, including the TRP rigging scam, fake social media followers case and a car scam involving Dilip Chhabria.
The government will send notices to 85 companies asking why their licences should not be cancelled for suppressing facts, said Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Monday.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of using agencies like the CBI and Enforcement Directorate to threaten liquor licensees and excise officials but the BJP alleged that the AAP government's 'rushed' move was an 'admission of violations and corruption' and it was 'scared' of the CBI probe.
The central probe agency has got an alleged 'close associate' of Sisodia -- Dinesh Arora -- to spill beans by turning approver in the case, they said.
Analysts say the Sun Network's fundamentals may be sound but the troubles faced by Maran have caused a lot of volatility.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was questioned for nearly nine hours by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday in the excise policy case, amid protests by his party as the Aam Aadmi Party chief claimed that the allegations of scam were false and the agency was acting at the Bharatiya Janata Party's behest.
A trainee co-pilot with Air India was arrested for allegedly using forged marksheets to procure commercial flying licences, taking the total number of people arrested in such cases to 22.
Sisodia was arrested after nearly eight hours of questioning on various aspects of the excise policy for 2021-22, which the probe agency says suffered from irregularities both in its formulation and implementation, allegedly intended to benefit people with links to the AAP.
Former Telecom Minister A Raja ignored the advice of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the availability of 2G spectrum be assessed before the grant of licences, Central Bureau of India said on Saturday in its first chargesheet filed before a special court in New Delhi.
'The transactions were done in a circuitous route deliberately and most of the companies involved in it are Reliance ADA group firms.'
Singh, the Finance Minister in the National Democratic Alliance regime, was heading the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the issue of limited mobility and unified licencing during the relevant period.
Can call centre thefts end India's flourishing BPO business? Do such deeds give India a bad name? Tell us what you think.
There is nothing sinister or diabolic about Union minister Kapil Sibal's latest argument regarding the findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India pertaining to the loss to the exchequer from 2G telecom licences in 2007.
The fear of another scam pushed the government into a rather long period of so-called 'policy paralysis'. To play it safe, the price of spectrum in all subsequent auctions was benchmarked to the high 3G rates, says Surajeet Das Gupta.
Simply put, the story of UPA is one of omissions and commissions.
The phenomenon is a little difficult to explain. According to the Supreme Court's order, all telecom service licences given in 2008, during the A Raja regime, have to be cancelled by June 2. The licencees will have to return the spectrum they received to host telephony services.
As opposition leaders like the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Janata Dal-United supremo and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed solidarity with Kejriwal on Saturday and renewed calls to speed up opposition unity efforts to take on the BJP, officials said the CBI may ask the AAP chief about the policy formulation process, especially of the "untraceable" file which was earlier slated to be put before the Delhi Council of Ministers.
The charge against Sibal is that, in February 2011, he reduced the penalty on RCom for violation of the United Access Service Licences agreement from Rs 50 crore to Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) per telecom circle.
Delinking spectrum from the licences in the aftermath of the 2G scam, Sibal said, "In future, the spectrum will not be bundled with licence. The licence to be issued to telecom operators will be in the nature of 'Unified Licence' and the licence holder will be free to offer any of the multifarious telecom services."
The Apex Court has asked the minister and the two agencies to respond to the notice within the next ten days.
Summons have been issued to some new telecom firms asking for financial records and documents, according to official sources. However, the names of the companies could not be ascertained.
The government on Tuesday tabled in Parliament the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report on 2G spectrum allocation, whose reported extracts have created a political storm and led to the resignation of Telecom Minister A Raja.
