In a war against corruption, the Bihar government continues to keep its promise of confiscating ill-gotten property of corrupt officials and covert it into schools.
The Supreme Court said on Wednesday that money laundering is a "heinous" crime which not only affects the social and economic fabric of a nation but also tends to promote other serious offences like terrorism and drug trafficking.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Friday security in the ocean needs to be strengthened as most of the narcotic drugs are shipped in Pakistan and go via Iran to Sri Lanka and Africa.
The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed three bills to replace the colonial-era criminal laws by voice vote.
The banners came up at major road crossings in Lucknow late on Thursday night on the directions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, an official said. They bear photographs, names and addresses of those accused of vandalism during protests in December against the CAA.
There is no dearth of political will today to act against corruption and officers should take action against the corrupt, however powerful, without any hesitation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday.
The Delhi police took Sahil Gehlot, accused of killing his girlfriend, to the crime spot on Thursday to recreate the sequence of events leading up to the incident.
A special court in Mumbai on Friday declared three family members of late gangster Iqbal Mirchi as 'fugitive economic offenders' under the provisions of a criminal law by the same name, official sources said.
The crackdown on black money has led to seizing of Rs 3,963 crore of smuggled goods in two years.
Britain's Cairn Energy Plc has dropped lawsuits against the Indian government and its entities in the US and other places and is in the final stages of withdrawing cases in Paris and the Netherlands to get back about Rs 7,900 crore that were collected from it to enforce a retrospective tax demand. As part of the settlement reached with the government to the seven-year old dispute over levy of back taxes, the company - which is now known as Capricorn Energy PLC - has initiated proceedings to withdraw lawsuits it had filed in several jurisdictions to enforce an international arbitration award which had overturned levy of Rs 10,247 crore retrospective taxes and ordered India to refund the money already collected. Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Cairn on November 26 withdrew the lawsuit it had brought in Mauritius for recognition of the arbitration award and took similar measures in courts in Singapore, the UK and Canada.
Offenders will be tried under Prevention of Money Laundering Act
Businessman Raj Kundra was the "main facilitator" in a pornographic content case and he along with other accused exploited young women struggling in the movie industry by filming them in obscene ways, the Mumbai Police claimed in a supplementary charge-sheet filed in a court on Wednesday.
Violations of the act, made operational from November 1 last year, attract a heavy penalty and rigorous jail term up to seven years.
If Mallya does not appear before the court, he risks being declared a fugitive economic offender, besides properties linked to him being confiscated.
Bhagat Singh was born on September 28, 1907 in Banga village in Lyallpur district, now Faisalabad in Pakistan Punjab.
The government on Tuesday confirmed that a French court has ordered the freezing of certain Indian assets in Paris on a petition by Britain's Cairn Energy, which is seeking to recover $1.72 billion from New Delhi after winning an arbitration against retro tax. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha said the government has filed an appeal against an international arbitration tribunal overturning levy of Rs 10,247 crore in back taxes on Cairn Energy. "Yes sir, an order has been passed by a French Court freezing certain Indian government properties in the case pertaining to Cairn Energy," he said.
The Budget has proposed a Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Bill.
Fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi's sister and brother-in-law have "turned approvers" in the over $2 billion PNB fraud case against him and they will help the Enforcement Directorate confiscate assets worth Rs 579 crore, including Swiss bank deposits, the agency said on Thursday. Forty-nine-year-old Nirav Modi, who is currently lodged in a London jail, his uncle Mehul Choksi and others are being probed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) money laundering case since 2018. The diamond merchant's younger sister Purvi Modi (47) is a Belgian national while her husband Maiank Mehta is a British citizen. They are stated to be based abroad and have never joined the probe.
Britain's Cairn Energy has secured a French court order to seize 20 Indian govt properties to recover arbitration award, it is learnt.
Mayawati recently appointed her brother Kumar as national vice president of the Bahujan Samaj Party.
The I-T dept has issued 87 notices under section 24 of the said Act
Confiscation of the tycoon's properties will start from February 5.
After Air India, Britain's Cairn Energy PLC plans to target assets of state-owned firms and banks in countries from the US to Singapore as it looks to ramp up efforts to recover the amount due from the Indian government after winning an arbitration against levy of retrospective taxes. A lawyer representing the company said Cairn will bring lawsuits in several countries to make state-owned firms liable to pay the $1.2 billion plus interest and penalties that are due from the Indian government. Last month, Cairn brought a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York pleading that Air India is controlled by the Indian government so much that they are 'alter egos' and the airline should be held liable for the arbitration award.
Billionaire Anil Agarwal's mining group Vedanta on Monday said it has withdrawn cases in the Delhi high court as well as before an international arbitration tribunal to settle a Rs 20,495 crore retrospective tax dispute with the government. Post slapping of a Rs 10,247 crore tax demand on UK's Cairn Energy Plc for alleged capital gains made on a 2016 internal reorganisation prior to the listing of its India business, the Income Tax Department had sought Rs 20,495 crore in taxes (including penalty) from Cairn India for failing to deduct tax on capital gains made by its British parent. Cairn India was in 2011 bought by Agarwal's group and subsequently, the firm was merged with Vedanta Ltd.
UK's Cairn Energy Plc has offered to forego $500 million and invest that amount in any oil and gas or renewable energy project identified by the Indian government if New Delhi agrees to honour an international arbitration award and returns the value of loss it incurred because of being taxed retrospectively, sources said. The Scottish firm invested in the oil and gas sector in India in 1994 and a decade later it made a huge oil discovery in Rajasthan. In 2006-07, it listed its Indian assets on the BSE. Five years after that the government passed a retroactive tax law and billed Cairn Rs 10,247 crore plus interest and penalty for the reorganisation tied to the flotation.
Copies of the bill, to be moved by Finance Minister Amit Mitra tomorrow for consideration and passage, were circulated among members on the first day of a two-day special session of the Assembly on Monday.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Thursday demanded a CBI probe into the multi-crore chit fund scam in West Bengal and asked the state government to confiscate all properties of Saradha Group to pay off thousands of small investors left in the lurch.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday intensified his fight against corruption in the state by issuing orders to prosecute 11 corrupt officers and confiscate their properties, according to state government officials. The date for the symbolic gesture against corruption was 11/11/11. On the third day of his Seva Yatra in Bettiah, district headquarters of West Champaran, Kumar cleared pending files about corruption cases against the eleven officers.
In a dig at Adityanath's earlier warning that rioters damaging public property will have to pay, the Congress general secretary said saffron denotes Hinduism, a religion that does not advocate violence or 'revenge'.
After announcing that the properties of corrupt officials will be confiscated and turned into primary schools, Bihar government plans to upload videos of complaints against officials seeking bribes and any genuine grievances of corruption on YouTube.
What would you do if you have been declared dead in government records and your ancestral property worth a few crores has been confiscated by your closest relatives?
As the government faces heat over corruption and black money, it is planning to bring a law to prevent the misuse of benami transactions, a key source of illicit funds.
Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said the instances of people running away and evading the legal process was increasing and this needed to be stopped, as the current laws do not allow fully dealing with the severity of the problem.
According to the chargesheet, Shetty told the police that she did not know anything about the HotShots and Bollywood Fame apps, allegedly used by the accused for uploading and streaming obscene content.
Paramilitary force personnel and state police force will be deployed and drone cameras will be used to ensure security on Friday.
He opined that procedural delays like granting sanction and difficulty in marshalling large number of witnesses were the major hurdles in achieving meaningful convictions.
The sources said the taxman has initiated a country-wide operation to identify suspect bank accounts where huge cash deposits have been made post November 8.
The Madras high court has directed the Tamil Nadu Crime Branch-CID police to probe the case of 'missing' gold, which left the country's premier investigating agency red-faced.
Vowing to retain power for the second time in a row, they said such 'anti-people' forces must be taught a lesson again by vanquishing them through hardwork, unity and allegiance to the party.
The agency's poor track record in convictions is the only light at the end of a rather long tunnel for the couple, observes Shyamal Majumdar.
