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Political Notes

	March 26, 2007

Case against former Punjab Chief Minister



The Punjab Vigilance Bureau has registered a case against former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and 18 others in the alleged Rs. 100 crore Ludhiana City Centre scam. One person has already been arrested in connection with the case. The Vigilance Bureau says that it is looking for the remaining including Capt. Amarinder Singh and former Local Bodies Minister Chaudhary Jagjit Singh.



The preliminary inquiry condutced by the Vigilance Bureau, according to sources, established that the Ludhiana City Centre scam caused an estimated minimum loss of Rs. 1500 crore to Rs. 3000 crore to the state exchequer. The chartered accountant associated with the inquiry said the state had lost a minimum of Rs. 1500 crore in this deal. The inquiry also alleges that kickbacks of not less than Rs. 100 crore were shared by some top men in the then Amarinder Singh Government.



Amarinder Singh on his part alleged that the facts had been distorted and “it is all concoction.”



“During my five-year tenure, I approved 377 mega projects worth Rs 105000 crore and no one can accuse me of taking even a single paisa from anyone.



“I shall return to India as and when my lawyers advise me to. If they want me to come tomorrow, I will come tomorrow. So, now there is no question of my coming on March 26. I have finalised no date for my return,” added Amarinder Singh from London.



He claimed that the project was the best thing to have happened to Punjab. The proposed centre would have given Ludhiana Asia’s largest building.



The Vigilance Bureau has issued “look out notices” to all domestic and international airports about 17 of the 19 accused including former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, ex-Minister Jagjit Singh and ex-Chief Improvement Trust, Ludhiana Paramjit Singh Sibia and ex-PPCC chief H.S. Hanspal allegedly involved in the case.





Package for Gujarat riot victims



In a significant move, ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the Centre has announced a rehabilitation package for the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots on the lines of that drawn up for the anti-Sikh riots in 1984. The package has been announced in the wake of complaints about the State government’s failure to provide adequate relief.



The relief package will cost over Rs. 106 crore for 1169 persons killed and over 2500 injured in the riots. The Union Cabinet decision says the payments under the package will be available in even those cases not reported by the state government. This means that the Centre could be approached directly for the relief, if details were given.



The next of kin of those killed would get an ex-gratia amount at the rate of Rs. 3.50 lakh, which would be in addition to the amount already paid by the state government. The injured would get an ex-gratia amount of Rs.1.25 lakh each.



There was an uproar in the Gujarat Assembly on Friday, March 23, as the ruling BJP members criticised the relief package announced by the Central Government. Later Chief Minister Narendra Modi termed the Centre’s decision as “biased, unjust and politically motivated.” He said the Akshardham terror victims should also have been covered by the package. The BJP demanded the inclusion of victims of Godhra train burning in the relief package announced by the Central Government.





Babri mosque case to continue in Rae Bareli



The Babri Masjid demolition case against L.K. Advani and seven other leaders will go on separately in a Rae Bareli court without conspiracy charges.



Efforts to seek transfer of the case to Lucknow, where other cases in connection with the 1992 demolition were being heard, came to a naught with the Supreme Court refusing to review an earlier verdict it had given.



The decision came on March 22 on a petition that Aslam Bhure, who has been intervening in matters concerning the disputed structure, had filed seeking review of the court’s November 2002 judgment. In that verdict, the apex court had upheld an Allahabad High Court order, which had quashed a notification transferring the case to the special court in Lucknow.



After separation of the case, the CBI had in 2003 - the BJP-led NDA was in power then - filed a fresh charge-sheet before the Rae Bareli court, dropping conspiracy charges against the eight leaders. This came as a relief to Advani and the others who had been named in the consolidated charge-sheet before the Lucknow court.



The Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, however, noted that it was for the Uttar Pradesh government, if it so desired, to issue a fresh notification after consulting the High Court.



Soon after the ruling, the Babri Masjid Action Committee convener and oldest plaintiff in the case, 85-year-old Mohammad Hashim Ansari, accused the Mulayam Singh Yadav government of being hand in glove with the BJP.



The Committee and the Muslim Personal Law Board had been lobbying for a fresh notification by the government for an integrated trial.