Plan and Policy

The Supreme Court slammed the PILs, which sought a probe into the death of Judge Loya, holding that they were filed with an oblique motive to settle personal and political scores.

—BJP—

Soon after the Supreme Court verdict in the Loya case, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra hit out at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi saying he should be ashamed for what he described as a conspiracy to target Shah, the Indian judiciary and the country's democracy. Alleging that the “invisible hand” behind the petitions seeking an independent probe into the case was of Gandhi and the Congress, Patra said, “The Congress engages in all sorts of conspiracies after its ruling family loses power and the attempt to use judiciary for political purposes is a new low in Indian politics.”

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the plea for an independent inquiry into the circumstances of the death of Brijgopal Harikishan Loya, a judicial officer in Maharashtra on December 1, 2014 (who heard the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case involving BJP president Amit Shah) holding that there are enough materials to suggest that he died of natural causes.

Delhi-based startup Fir­st Time Travellers has (FTTL) raised fresh fu­nds of Rs 1.30 crore from angel investor Manoj Prasad val­uing the company at more than Rs 36 crore. This is second tranche of fund infusion in the startup, which operates icanstay.com portal, which helps make last-minute bo­oking at star hotels across various cities. The startup eyes annual turnover of Rs 700 crore by 2020 tapping the rising demand for hotels.

Enterprises that operate in 23 different verticals around 125 geographies have lost $7 billion in 2,690 different real scenario incid­ents of occupational frau­ds, said 2018 global fraud study, released by the Texas-based Association of Certified Fraud Examiners on Thursday.

While experts are postulating new theories and customers still facing dry ATMs, the cash chaos seems to have stemmed from a government decision. Last year it decided to stop printing of Rs 2,000 currency notes and forgot to revisit it. Sources said the government must have thought of phasing out Rs 2,000 banknotes at that time.

Even as the government and the Rese­rve Bank of In­dia (RBI) have asserted that there is no currency shortage, SBI Research on We­d­n­esday pegged the cash shortfall in the system at a whopping Rs 70,000 crore, which is a third of the monthly withdrawals at ATMs.

The central bureau of investigation (CBI) on Wed­n­e­s­day questioned Sunil Bh­uta, chief financial officer (CFO) of NuPower Renewables, a company founded by the husband of ICICI Bank CEO and managing director Chanda Kochhar, in connection with an Rs 3,250 crore loan from the bank to the Videocon Group in 2012, officials said here.

Former Sebi chairman M Damodaran blamed the telephone calls from Delhi to Mumbai for the myriad problems that public sector banks face now and warned against their privatisation to resolve the crisis.

“Telephone calls from Delhi to Bombay, over the years, have been at the root of the problem of the public sector banks. People in Bombay have been unquestionably responding to the direction from Delhi,” Damod­aran said told the students of the RBI-run National Institute of Bank Management here on Wednesday on their convocation.

The government has approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) seeking modification of an NCLT order so th­at it can attach the properties of those involved in the $2 billion PNB fraud. In a petition, the corporate affairs ministry h­a­s also sought to invoke powers including the removal of the management and recovery of undue gains. The plea seeks modificati­on of the order passed by the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) by adding sections such as 241, 242, 246 read with 339 of the Companies Act.