How Ministers children rule India?

Politician to son: Don’t come back to India
by Anant Rangaswami Oct 15, 2012
My dear son,
When you went abroad to study, it was with a clear understanding that, once you finish your education you would return to India. We took a family decision when your education ended; that it made sense for you to stay in the US for a few years more, enjoy your youth, money and then return and stand for elections as Member of Parliament from the constituency our family has represented for so many decades.
It has been five years since you left, and, last week, when we spoke on Skype, you told me that you believed that it was time to return. At first, I was delighted. Then, after the call was over, the import of what you planned to do sank in. My impulse was to call you back immediately, but I thought I’d put my thoughts down in an email so that you have a better understanding of what I want to say and why I say it.
In a nutshell, I do not want you to return to India. The India of today is not the India that you left. Much has changed – and much of the change negatively affects families like ours.
“The India of today is not the India that you left. Much has changed – and much of the change negatively affects families like ours”. AP There is a change in the balance of power in society. People do not understand what people like me, member of parliament, do – and no longer acknowledge that all of us, thanks to the great sacrifices we make for our constituency, do not live like normal people.
Just the other day, a fellow Member of Parliament was almost shamed in the context of what media is calling a Rs 71 lakh ‘scam’. The media, who no longer seem to have respect for people like us, are harassing him the whole day, treating him like a common cheat. Even worse is the case of Robert Vadra, Priyankaji’s husband. It seems DLF lent Robertji Rs 65 crore without any security – and the media and social activists are making that out to be a crime. What crime? Many friends in business have lent me hundreds of crores without any security over the decades – and they haven’t even asked for me to return it. Why would they? After all, as a friend, I’ve helped them on so many instances that they’ve earned fortunes from our friendship. Now, media is making it sound like it’s a crime for MPs and ministers to help friends. What a terrible state of affairs.
Sharad Pawar’s nephew has been forced to resign because of some allegations on a developmental work that he was involved in. Media says that he helped contractors make extra money by approving of rises in estimates after the contracts were awarded. What is wrong with that? Your grandfather used to do the same with his friends, as did I.
Ministers like Raja, Kanimozhi and Kalmadi have been jailed because of trying to help their friends. This is where our country is going to. No one has any respect for our class any more, and the media and social activists are being helped by the courts – they’re ganging up against us.
Things are bad in India, son. It is becoming difficult for people like us to carry on in the way we are used to. We are treated like commoners, we are called cheats and thugs. We’re reaching a stage when toll booth attendants expect us to pay – an FIR was filed against an MP who, obviously got upset at the request and threatened the attendant with a gun for his cheek.
It is getting very petty. The other day, Air-India staff at Guwahati charged three MPs for carrying excess baggage. MPs not being allowed excess baggage on the national airline, and lowly employees of Air-India not respecting them? This is the new India, the India you want to come back to!
That’s why I write this note to you. Do not come back to India, and forget about plans on a career in politics. Come to Geneva next week; I will meet you there. I will transfer money to your account so that you can invest in a house in New York. As far as business is concerned, maybe you could buy a university nearby. After all, your uncle has six universities in India and they are quite profitable. I will ask him to guide you when you begin your venture.
Will discuss in detail when we meet next week.
With love from your father.
Politician to son: Don’t come back to India

Senior Military Officers caught in Money Spinning Spree

Army Maj Gen in the dock in electronic warfare equipment scam
[ Updated 30 Aug 2012, 14:09:27 ]
New Delhi, Aug 30: Major irregularities and siphoning off of funds have come to light in the purchase of electronic warfare equipment worth Rs 80 crore for the crucial Northern Command that covers Kashmir.
A Major General of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (EME) is in the dock in the Court of Inquiry, presided over by a Lieutenant General.
The Major General was attached to the Udhampur-based Northern Command earlier this month. The senior ranking officer has been divested of all operational responsibilities pending completion of the Court of Inquiry.
A newspaper report quoting sources said, the deal for electronic warfare and other sensitive equipment was signed last year and the Army carried out a preliminary probe when allegations of misappropriation by way of submitting fake bills came to light some months later.
Finding substance in the allegations, the Army then ordered a formal Court of Inquiry in May this year against a Colonel.
He, however, denied the allegations and pointed fingers at his Major General, who was the Master General (overall chief) of the Northern Command EME.
Officials said the officers were not able to explain expenditure of nearly Rs 30 crore out of the Rs 80 crore deal.
Sensing the seriousness of the charges, the Army ordered another Court of Inquiry after allegations surfaced against the Major General.
The latest scam involving senior officers comes in the backdrop of cases like Adarsh Housing Society scam in Mumbai, Sukna land scam and allotment of defence land to builders in Pune. All these cases involved officers of the rank of Lt Generals.
A former Military Secretary was also divested of his rank in the Sukna land scam.
Besides these high profile cases, two Lieutenant Generals, now retired, were prima facie found guilty of misappropriation of funds in procurement of rations including dal and mutton for troops.
Army Maj Gen in the dock in electronic warfare equipment scam
Comment: EW equipment purchase scandal by EME seems to be a new avenue for kickbacks as the equipment is shrouded in secrecy... Thank heavens there are no imminent war threats... Our Corrupt senior officers and bureaucrats will ensure defeat even before combat commences!

Adarsh Scam: Army Chief's spin the Judicial Commission

Another ex-Army Chief Gen Vij says Adarsh no security threat
Published: Wednesday, Aug 22, 2012, 21:22 IST
Place: Mumbai | Agency: PTI
After Deepak Kapoor, another former Army Chief NC Vij today took a stand at variance with the defence ministry when he said he did not see the controversial Adarsh Society building here as a security threat.
Gen Vij told a judicial panel that what mattered was credentials of occupants, not the 31-storey building itself.
"I visited Adarsh building only for a few minutes. I did not consider the security aspect....it is not the building but the occupants who have to be scrutinised from security angle. If the occupants are trustworthy and dependable, then there is no question of security threat," Vij told the two-member commission set up by Maharashtra government to probe the Adarsh scam.
Earlier, Gen Kapoor had told the commission that he did not consider Adarsh -- which stands very close to a Defence premises -- as security threat, because there were several other high-rises in the area.
The stand taken by Vij and Kapoor is in sharp contrast to Ministry of Defence's claim that the highrise building in upscale Colaba is a security threat, and should be pulled down.
"As far as security threat aspect is concerned, it requires detailed appreciation of a number of factors like the population profile of cantonment, how many civilians and military personnel are there, the layout of the general area, the vulnerable targets and the surrounding area profile. This has to be done by the Local Military Authority," said Vij.
Soon after the scam broke, he learnt that several personnel of Local Military Authority and Southern Command were members of Adarsh Society, Vij said.
Both Kapoor and Vij were members of the society, and later sought to surrender their flats when allegations about illegal permissions granted to Adarsh by civic/state authorities cropped up.
"I have written letters to the society and Collector of Mumbai seeking to surrender my flat, but I have not got any reply," Vij said.
Another ex-Army Chief Gen Vij says Adarsh no security threat

Fake certificate scam has hit the Armed Forces

After the Adarsh, Sukna and and NDA scam, the fake certificate scam has hit the Armed Forces. TIMES NOW has details of eight non-commissioned officers caught buying fake certificates for promotion. TIMES NOW also has details of how fake certificates are being sold by officials in Services Sports Control Board for Rs 2000 each. Meanwhile, for the first time, Army Chief Bikram Singh confirmed the fake certificate scam and infact promised stern action against those involved.

President's Pune Home: Is surrender of land a diversionary tactic?

President returns Pune plot to Govt.
April 28, 2012 2:20 am
President Pratibha Patil, who has recently come at the centre of a controversy over her post-retirement home in Pune, on Friday decided to give up the controversial plot back to the government.
Confirming the development, the Presidential spokesperson said, “President Patil has decided to give up the Pune land on which a bungalow, meant to be her post-retirement home, was to be built back to the government.”
“The President is answerable to the people of India, Constitution and her conscience. The land will remain with the government,” Presidential spokesperson said. The controversy about President Pratibha Patil’s post-retirement home erupted after an organisation of ex-servicemen in Pune alleged that over fives acres of land had been allotted for purpose of her residence after she demits office later in July this year when her five-year term ends.
Suresh Patil, a retired Lt Col of the Pune-based ‘Justice for Jawan’, part of NGO ‘Green Thumb’ group, who has accessed details about the Government’s measures for providing her housing in Pune, claimed that a large extent of land measuring over 2.60 lakh square feet had been allotted to her in Khadki cantonment in Pune.
He claimed that a house with a plinth area of 4,500 square feet was being built for her by bringing down two British-era county bungalows. The former Army official questioned why such a large extent of land was being fenced to protect this house for Pratibha Patil, who recently made news when an RTI application brought out the fact that over Rs 205 crore were spent on her foreign travels.
President returns Pune plot to Govt.

Adarsh scam: ED to summon flat holders to identify proxies

Manish Pachouly , Hindustan Times
Mumbai, May 02, 2012
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will soon start summoning flat holders in the tainted Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society to gather evidence that would help them attach the properties in the cases found to have violated the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED had on Monday informed the Bombay high court that it would start attaching the properties once the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) files the charge sheet.
The ED had also informed the court that it has already registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) against all the 14 persons booked by the CBI. Sources said that to attach properties, the agency would have to gather concrete evidence, for which flat owners suspected to have violated the money laundering law need to be summoned.
The first set of summons would go to the relatives, friends and acquaintances of the accused, named in the first information report (FIR) by the CBI, and who hold flats in Adarsh.
During investigation, the CBI has come across instances where one person holds more than one flat and where flats have been booked in the names of drivers or those with very meagre incomes.
In a recent remand, the CBI had said that former member of legislative council and one of the promoters of the society, Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, had revealed that out of four flats (suspected to be benami, i.e. in proxy names) he holds, two are reserved in proxy names to oblige some high and mighty persons in the government of Maharashtra who dealt with the file during the relevant period and two others for a similar purpose.
The payments for the above flats have been made by Gidwani through his bank accounts.
Sources said that there are many such cases where actual owners of the flats are different from the people in whose names the flats are registered.
The ED will record statements to find out the actual source of payments made for the flats in question.
For this, the ED plans to go into the entire trail of money -- from its origin till the payment was made for the flats.
Sources said the ED would wait before summoning the accused named in the CBI’s FIR, with 9 out of 14 accused behind bars.
Sources said since these accused are in judicial custody, the court's permission would be required to record their statements, and it would also be difficult to take bulk of the documents to the jail.
The ED would therefore summon them once they are out on bail.
Sources said recording statements of family members, friends and acquaintances on whose names the flats are booked would be valuable at this stage.
click here for the original post
Comment: The former chief's who had booked houses in the Adarsh Housing Scam and subsequently withdrawn need to be investigated for money laundering and black money generated by accepting bribes from munition dealers.

Hand over to Defence: Court Advises Adarsh Members

Congress, NCP leaders have benami Adarsh
♦ Following HC rap, CBI produces accused IAS officers, retired senior armymen in court on Thursday; will probe proxy owners in the building
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the Adarsh scam, is now unearthing benami transactions connected with the controversy-hit south Mumbai building. Sources in the CBI said there are three state politicians who are having benami flats in Adarsh — two from the Nationalist Congress Party and one from the Congress.
About a fortnight ago, CBI sleuths conducted a site visit to the controversial Adarsh Society at Cuffe Parade and also found how walls of these benami flats were broken to amalgamate them.
The payment for the flat of one of these politicians — a Congressman — was made through his son by cheque. Another politician, an NCP leader from Vidarbha, was seen attending a family function of the Adarsh promoter.
Sources in the DF government said that Maj Gen T Kaul, an accused in the scam, has already confessed to the NCP politician holding a benami flat in Adarsh.
Meanwhile, as per the directions of the Bombay High Court, a committee has been formed by the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax to look into the benami flats jointly.
Meanwhile, the court advised the the members of Adarsh society to realise their mistake and surrender the controversial building to the Ministry of Defence, saying ‘the security of the nation is of utmost importance'.
Congress, NCP leaders have benami Adarsh
CBI investigating Pawar Pune clan
CBI to quiz Southern Command officials in Adarsh case
“Custodial interrogation [of Major General (retired) T K Kaul] revealed that some senior officials of Southern Command, Pune, while giving the reply to Parliament Question about the status of the said land were appraised and still they sent false reply that the land has never been/ was under the occupation of the Army with malafide intention. Subsequently, the officers in the chain became members of the society,” the investigating agency said in its remand application
CBI to quiz Southern Command officials in Adarsh case

Major Land Scams that Shamed the Army

At the corps of land scandals: The nation's biggest landlord the army is being exploited by unscrupulous officers to make money on the sly
By Gautam Datt UPDATED: 00:22 GMT, 7 February 2012
The defenders of our country and its borders are fighting a secret enemy – which has threatened their dignity and integrity – greed. And at the centre of greed is the humongous amount of land that has been given to the Indian Army by the government for the purpose of establishing its cantonments, offices, residential property, etc.
In fact, the ministry of defence is the biggest landholder in the government with a holding of 17.31 lakh acres of land across the country.
However, in the recent years this land – thousands of acres of which has been notified as 'excess' by a CAG audit – has been utilised by some senior officers as an opportunity for corruption. And they didn't have to try hard for finding a partner and the ways to use this 'encroached' or excess land. Various land sharks always on the lookout for an opportunity to grab the defence land eagerly join hands with these unscrupulous officers to make a quick buck.
TAINT ON UNIFORM: MAJOR SCAMS THAT SHAMED ARMY
Read more: Click here for CAG report and List of Scams

Consumer Redressal Commission imposes Rs 10,000 fine on AWHO

Consumer body hints at ‘Adarsh-like scam’ in Army housing allotment in Panchkula
Rajni Shaleen Chopra,Rajni Shaleen Chopra Posted: Jan 08, 2012
Chandigarh Haryana Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has taken a stern view of the irregularities in allotments by Army Welfare Housing Organisation (AWHO) at its residential project at Sector 20 in Panchkula, and has said that “if enquired into deeply, this may again turn out to be another scam like Adarsh Society at Bombay”.
In a recent order, the Commission had taken note of the lack of transparency by AWHO, and “violation of rules...to accommodate their own favourites”. President of the Commission Justice R S Madan and Judicial Member B M Bedi stated, “Though the organisation was created for the welfare of serving/retired defence personnel and was expected to act in a transparent manner...allotments have been made by adopting to a system of fixing security arbitrarily”.

The order was delivered following the appeal made by the Managing Director of AWHO, New Delhi and Col Satish Kumar, Project Director of the Sector 20 project, against the order of District Consumer Forum, Panchkula. The Forum had decided in favour of the complainant, Subedar Raj Kumar Dhingra (retd) of Sector 2, Panchkula.

The Commission dismissed the appeal filed with scathing remarks against AWHO, and imposed costs of Rs 10,000 on it.

Dhingra stated in his complaint that in June 2004, he registered for the AWHO housing scheme in Sector 20 by paying Rs 90,500. The seniority of applicants was to be determined on the basis of the date of bank draft given for the registration fee.

Dhingra was given a registration number and placed at Serial Number 15. In May 2009, AWHO informed him that his waitlist seniority was ‘1’. He was told to either seek transfer to the AWHO project in Panchkula’s Sector 27 or withdraw his registration, as all dwelling units had been allotted. Dhingra complained to AWHO in this regard, but did not get justice.

In June, AWHO again informed him that all dwelling units except one had been handed over. Dhingra told the court that this was contrary to their earlier letter.

In its reply, AWHO said the seniority of applicants was fixed by a local computerised draw in July 2004. In this, Dhingra’s seniority was 723 against the availability of 348 apartments. Dhingra was given the option of changing his registration from Sector 20 to Sector 27, Panchkula, but he did not agree. AWHO said that Dhingra was ranked ‘1’ on the waiting list but no apartment was available, hence there was no deficiency of service on its part.

After considering the case, the Commission said the AWHO rules did not prescribe for any computerised draw. “AWHO has not disclosed the date of draw, the officer under whose supervision it was held, the manner of the draw etc,” said the order.

The Commission further added: “One of the registrants against whom the complainant has a grievance (a Brigadier) was not even a member of the scheme till August 2004 while the complainant had registered in June 2004 and the draw was held in July 2004.” Hence, Dhingra was high up in the seniority list.

After considering other aspects of the case, the Commission observed that allotment was not done fairly by AWHO. The Commission upheld the order of the Forum that AWHO must allot a flat to Dhingra at Sector 20 or 27, Panchkula or at Sector 114 in Mohali at the same price.
Consumer body hints at ‘Adarsh-like scam’ in Army housing allotment in Panchkula

Adarsh: CBI arrests its own counsel, politician for bribery

The Hindu March 7, 2012
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested four persons including its own counsel and a former Congress legislator on charges of criminal conspiracy for diluting the charges against the politician in the Adarsh case. The CBI said that the politician paid Rs 1.25 crores to a tax consultant to be given to the CBI officials for favours. A special CBI court on Tuesday remanded all the accused to police custody till March 16.

The agency indicated it may arrest more persons in the case.
Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, the former Congress Member of Legislative Council (MLC) who has already been named in the Adarsh First Information Report (FIR) by the CBI, was arrested along with his son Kailash Gidwani, Retainer Counsel for CBI Mandar Goswamy and tax consultant sum lawyer J K Jagiasi.

The Gidwanis and Mr Goswamy have been booked under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC); and 7, 8, 9, 12 and 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Mr Jagiasi has been booked under sections 120(B) of the IPC and 8, 9 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

While Mr Jagiasi was arrested on Monday afternoon, the Gidwanis were arrested late night on Monday. Mr Goswami was arrested early morning on Tuesday.

The CBI said that Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, through his son Kailash transferred Rs 1.25 crores over a period of time to Mr Jagiasi in instalments to be given to the CBI officials, so that they could dilute the charges slapped on the politician in the Adarsh case. The CBI counsel told the additional sessions judge A M Kshatriya that Rs 25 lakh of the total sum was given to Mr Goswamy, Special Counsel in the Ministry of Law & Justice who had recently started working as Retainer Counsel for the CBI here.

“The money was given at a particular place which has been identified by us in six hours. There are documents which show transfer of funds. Prima facie, we have evidence that there is connection (among the accused). Custodial interrogation is necessary to study the transfer of amounts,” special public prosecutor for CBI, ACB, Ejaz Khan told the court.

The CBI stumbled upon the conspiracy after it arrested Mr Jagiasi on February 20 in a trap case, while accepting a bribe of Rs 25 lakh from an Air India official. His investigation revealed information about the transaction of Rs 1.25 crores between him and the Gidwanis. The agency seized the tax consultant’s 13 lockers and 26 diaries in which they found records for the money transaction.

The CBI said that it wants to interrogate Mr Jagiasi to recover five Petty Cash Books of the relevant period in last year which has details of the cash transactions. “This is a case of deep-rooted criminal conspiracy and several more persons are involved in this case. Custodial interrogation of the accused is very necessary to unearth the whole conspiracy and the chain of transfer of bribe amount from one person to another,” the remand application submitted by the agency in the court stated.

CBI also said it wants to investigate if the money was procured through hawala transactions.

The accused argued that they were aware that Adarsh case was being supervised by the Bombay High Court and that none of the CBI officials in Mumbai were in a position to given an favour to them. They said that Mr Goswamy was one of the most junior counsels in the department and there was no evidence to understand how he was capable of influencing any officer.

Mr Goswamy’s counsel argued that he was handed over the case as recently as on February 28. “The dates given by the CBI and the date when he [Mr Goswamy] was handed the case, do not match. Till now, he has appeared only once in the Adarsh case. Mr Jagiasi worked as our tax consultant hardly for a year. How do we know what he does in his personal life by taking Mandar’s name?” Rajshree Goswami, wife of Mr Goswami, told The Hindu.

The court observed that prima facie, the allegations against the accused were serious and demanded custodial interrogation.
Adarsh: CBI arrests its own counsel, politician for bribery

Five steps: How to steal Army land

Sandeep Unnithan
What with defense land scams getting rampant, it seems it is too easy to cheat the Army these days.
In just three years, 1,073 acres of defence land-equal to 412 football fields-has been swallowed up through encroachments by builders and private developers. The Government admitted this blandly in the Lok Sabha in March 2011, noting that encroachments in military areas have increased from 3,510.16 acres to 4,583.588 acres. The Directorate General of Defence Estates (DGDE) reported these encroachments on the 66,000 acres of land it held directly. DGDE is the department in the Ministry of Defence which is responsible for audit, accounting and financial management.
Over 17 lakh acres of defence land worth Rs.20 lakh crore is vulnerable to encroachment. Of this, nearly 11,000 acres have been stolen, and no one cares. Records for land worth thousands of crores of rupees are maintained in tattered paper registers instead of secure electronic databases. The land is not demarcated. Worse, a corrupt nexus of army brass, defence estates officials and builders continue to bite large chunks out of this land bank.
The DGDE has 1,251 officials to administer defence land, but no one has been held accountable for failing to protect it. The defence ministry is yet to table its proposed Defence Land Management Bill in Parliament. If there was a scamster’s manual for looting defence land, it would read something like this:

1. IDENTIFY PLIABLE DEFENCE AND ARMY OFFICIALS
Nexus between the officials has been found in most land scams that have been unearthed.
On January 31, the CBI raided the Pune home of former army vice chief Lt-General (Retd) Nobel Thamburaj for his alleged involvement in a land scam. An army press release said that Lt-General Thamburaj had arrived at an outof-court settlement with a builder that resulted in the government losing 0.96 acres of prime defence land worth Rs.45 crore in the Pune cantonment area.
In most military land scams unearthed over the past few years, defence estates officials have been found to be hand-in-glove with army officials and private developers. The reasons are not far to see. The DGDE is represented by defence estates officers in military stations. These officials are custodians of defence land. The army uses the land. A General Officer Commanding of a military area heads the local administration in all of the 62 cantonment boards across the country. The board issues sanctions for construction of buildings within the cantonment area.

2. TARGET LAND NOT IN MILITARY RECORDS
Land sharks take advantage of loopholes in land documentation.
Roughly 25 per cent of all defence land has not been ‘mutated’ or not transferred to the land records of the defence estates department.
Bureaucratic lethargy is to blame for this. When the land-holding is ambiguous, it becomes ripe for exploitation by land sharks. In the Adarsh scam for instance, the housing society that was formed by retired military officials and defence estates officials homed in on a football fieldsized plot of prime land in Colaba, South Mumbai. The land was held by the army but owned by the state government. No records were available. The combination of defence estates and armed forces officials moved in to build a commercial residential tower.

3. SURREPTITIOUSLY ENCROACH DEFENCE LAND
Builders encircle defence land after buying private plots around it.
Unused defence land is sometimes not even fenced. At times, corrupt land sharks are known to buy private land around vacant defence land and then gradually encircle it. This happened in the case of the Srinagar air force land scam uncovered in 2009.
Nearly 200 acres of prime defence land worth over Rs.1,500 crore was quietly sold over the years. The defence estates officials issued no-objection certificates to show that the land never belonged to the defence ministry despite having bought it in 1966.
Camping grounds, another colonial relic located on the outskirts of military areas, are also considered fair game. The DGDE is meant to conduct land audits to assess the state of its land bank. The last major audit was carried out in 2000. Each year the department presents shrinking estimates of its landholding. The encroachments are termed ‘a complex socio-economic problem’. Surveys of disputed land holdings, ordered to buy time, are carried out with the state government and can take over five years.
Responsibility for the protection of the land is diffused and the landholding opaque. Guilty officials are punished only if a hue and cry is raised in public. The CBI is now investigating three defence land scams- Adarsh, Kandivli and at Lohegaon, Pune. In the Lohegaon land scam unearthed in 2011, three scamsters prepared fake documents claiming ownership of about 69 acres of defence land worth Rs.800 crore.

4. TARGET OLD GRANT BUNGALOWS
Buyers propose tearing down old houses and constructing a new residential building on it. Old grant bungalows are Britishera dwellings on prime government land. These bungalows dot most military stations and cantonments. They are now valuable for their land which is owned by the government. The modus operandi is for the builder to approach the original tenants and buy them out.
The bungalows are ‘dehired’- the process by which the government stops collecting lease. The builder then approaches the cantonment board with a proposal for demolishing the ‘dilapidated’ building and constructing a new residential building on it. An audit done by the Comptroller and Auditor General in 2011 mentions 16 such bungalows in military areas of Lucknow, Almora, Kanpur, Ranikhet and Bareilly as being illegally sold for Rs.150 crore. Several other such cases are under the scanner of audit authorities. In the Meerut cantonment, schools, colleges and residential properties have been built on old grant bungalows. A CAG report of 2010 mentions how the Residency Club was built on an old grant bungalow in the Pune cantonment.

5. CHALLENGE THE TITLE OF DEFENCE LAND IN COURT
Court proceedings can drag on for decades because ofweak legal defence.
Among the weakest links in the DGDE is its inability to protect encroached defence land in court. There are an estimated 13,000 pending cases relating to defence land in various courts. The way these cases are handled causes concern. The Government does not file its replies in time and court proceedings drag on for decades. A report prepared by the Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA) suggests that the defence estates department get a separate legal department to fight their cases. This suggestion has gone unheeded.
“Defence estates officials pose as victims of the situation. It suits corrupt officials to have a weak legal defence put up by the Government so that they lose in court,” says a defence ministry official. CGDA officials say land worth “thousands of crores” is locked in legal disputes all over the country. A case in point is a six-acre plot of defence land in Secunderabad on which the defence accounts department built houses. A private firm won a favourable verdict from the high court in 2002. The case continues in the Supreme Court after the defence ministry appealed against this verdict.
The options for the ministry are grim in this case. They have to either demolish all the buildings, hand the land back to the private society or cough up an estimated Rs.100 crore, the market value of the land.
Five steps: How to steal Army land

The defenders of our country and its borders are fighting a secret enemy, which has threatened their dignity and integrity - greed. And at the centre of greed is the humongous amount of land that has been given to the Indian Army by the government for the purpose of establishing its cantonments, offices, residential property, etc. In fact, the Ministry of Defence is the biggest landholder in the government with a holding of 17.31 lakh acres of land across the country.
Read more at:
Land Sharks and Senior Officers in the Land Grab Mode

Ex Servicemen con their own brethren

3 dupe ex-servicemen of sites; absconding
Published: Sunday, Mar 4, 2012, 9:31 IST
By Imran Gowhar | Place: Bangalore | Agency: DNA
The Ashoknagar police are on the lookout for three “ex-servicemen” who were on the run after duping their colleagues of crores of rupees, promising them sites under ex-servicemen welfare organisation.

The scam came to light when the accused, identified as Guru Govind, Ningappa and PC Ganapathy, abruptly locked up their office and also shut down their website. According to the police, the trio, claiming to be ex-servicemen, launched ex-servicemen association two years ago and issued advertisements in the media offering sites for the ex-servicemen and retired government employees at affordable rates at Whitefield and Mysore Road, within two months, under the project name Indraprastha Layout.Hundreds of ex-servicemen approached the organisation and even made down payments, ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh as advance for booking sites.

The association members claimed they had already purchased land at Whitefield, Mysore Road and the layouts are being developed by Karnataka Land Army.

However, later when investors went to check about the status, they got evasive responses. After postponing the deadline a couple of times, the association wound up the business and the members went missing. Even the website, and the telephone numbers of the organisation were temporarily withdrawn.

Ananth Krishnan P, an ex-serviceman, had invested his life time saving and is currently running from pillar to post to get back his money. He said the association members used to move in posh cars and lived lavish lifestyle with our money and finally vanished when we started pressurising them, he said.

Out of greed, the association had even started extending the offers to civilians and retired government officials later on and collected huge amounts from them too, he added.
Saurabh, son of a retired colonel, told DNA that he had paid `50,000 to the organisation, on behalf of his father, for a site on Mysore Road in 2010.

Few months later the members went underground and since then I am trying to contact them. The office is locked and the telephone numbers have been terminated, he said.

Saurabh is in touch with a few members who had invested money. I have been in touch with ten persons from the army, who had invested their lifetime savings after retirement, he said.

The Ashok Nagar police have registered a case of cheating and are on the lookout for the members of the organisation.

We have taken a few people into custody and are questioning them to track down the absconding members, a police officer told DNA.
3 dupe ex-servicemen of sites; absconding
Comment: All ESM need to exercise caution when seeking membership or services from the numerous dubious ESM organisations. The mute question how one is to check the background of the governing body?

A military succession plot fine tuned by bureaucracy

How Can Great Oaks Sway With The Wind?
When he was a lieutenant general, V.K. Singh gave it in writing that he had faith in his army chief. This cannot be construed as ‘acceptance’ of a wrog DoB. Mrinalini Singh

An error had been made regarding the date of birth of my father at the time of filling up the UPSC form when he had applied for admission to the National Defence Academy (NDA). This was detected instantly and certain steps were taken to correct the year of birth even before he joined the academy. In fact, he reported 13 days late to the NDA as the date was being sor­ted out. This was obviously taken due note of, for all NDA records then showed his year of birth as 1951. Three years later, when he moved from the NDA to the Indian Military Academy (IMA), he was told to write the date of birth as in the UPSC form. He pointed out that this had been corrected and was told that this would be verified by a board of officers. The pre-commission advisory board checked and verified his particulars; his IMA ident­ity card and his record of service duly sta­ted that he was born in 1951. For the next few decades, ever since his commissioning into the army, his year of birth in all records, whether in the military secretariat or the adjutant general’s branch, was 1951. The only exception was the Army List, which is published keeping the original UPSC form as reference point. Even in this case, as the date of birth had to be verified against the school-leaving certificate, the entry was erroneous.

On May 3, 2006, 19 days after the results of the selection board for lieutenant generals had been declassified, the military secretary at the time, Lt Gen Richard Khare, first wrote to Gen V.K. Singh claiming there was a discrepancy in the records of the two branches. This set off a chain of events that eventually led to the army chief first filing a statutory complaint and then referring the matter to the Supreme Court.

On February 3, 2012, the SC, in its wisdom, castigated the government, stating that the due process of natural justice had not been followed and the process had been “vitiated” in addressing the army chief’s statutory complaint. The attorney general at that time asked for an adjournment, which was granted. During the second hearing, a week later, the attorney general started proceedings by submitting an affidavit by way of which it withdrew its order dated December 30, 2011, that rejected the statutory complaint. In view of the government's move, and the praise about the general’s professional and personal conduct, our lawyer felt there was no point in pressing the matter further, especia­lly since the court had made it clear that in light of the government’s stance, there was nothing further to be discussed from a legal point of view. As a citizen of India, the army chief has already expressed his grateful thanks to the learned judges of the apex court for addressing the issue.
My Ambition
I don’t want to be,
A wealthy man,
Nor I want to be,
A working man.
I want to be,
A great soldier,
Fighting on the front,
with a gun on my shoulder,
I want to die for,
My great, beloved nation,
And for my enemy,
I shall have no compassion,
I want to let the
Chinese know
That Indians can die,
For their Motherland.
(A poem written by Gen V.K. Singh as a Std VIII student, culled from his school magazine)The order passed by the court is not ambiguous in its content. I am bitterly disappointed at the deliberate spin given in the media to the proceedings in the court, which in my view and understanding are quite contrary to what the honourable judges have said in their order. Firstly, the order does not uphold an error in the threshold document, nor does it say anything about the legality of either of the two dates of birth. There’s also nothing to suggest that the so-called ‘acceptance letters’ exist. While it is true that these points came up during the hearing—as did many other statements, which include the much talked about “wise men move with the wind” remark of the judges—but these were arguments that in my understanding cannot be confused with the order passed by the learned judges.

If the government had not withdrawn its order of December 30 concerning my father’s statutory appeal, the arguments in the court would have had a different flavour and intensity and all the facts given above would have come into play, requiring adjudication. But this did not happen, and my father’s critics have gone to town, repeatedly harping that there are three occasions when he had “moved with the wind” and given acceptance letters to the year of birth being 1950. This is blatantly untrue, and I would like to set the record straight.

Contrary to what is being projected, there has never been any such ‘acceptance letter’. In 2006, he was perhaps the only serving lieutenant general in the history of the nation to be asked to furnish a fresh date of birth prior to being cleared for appointment as a corps commander. This despite the fact that just a few weeks prior to that, the military secretariat branch records had cleared him for promotion based on a 1951 year of birth. The then army chief, Gen J.J. Singh, my father’s chief at the time, had categorically told him that there was merely a clerical discrepancy in the records. This would be sorted out, and for that he needed to accept that he had faith in the army chief’s decisions. This would be in the interest of the organisation, as it was otherwise holding up the appointments of all corps commanders. Once the army chief had this letter, it was projected to the defence ministry that there was an ‘acceptance letter’ procured from my father, acknowledging the year of birth as 1950. The fact that my father, then a lieutenant general, continued to ask the military secretariat branch even after that how and why the army chief had been advised to make him declare a new year of birth underlines the fact that in 2006 there was no such ‘acceptance’.

The question that needs to be asked of the then army chief, the military secretary (Lt Gen Khare) and the judge advocate general (Maj Gen Nilender Kumar), who together initiated what was clearly not the standard operating procedure in 2006, is: Why did they make an exception in this case only? These gentlemen have found immunity in red tape, aided perhaps by some deft management of the media, which has sidestepped this question, while my father is accused of “bending with the wind”. In my view, this is where the injustice lies.

As for the second and third ‘acceptance’ letters, it is loos­ely being said they had been written in 2008 and 2009. This immediately begs the question that if there was a ‘first acceptance’ letter, then, what was the need for a second and a third one to be asked for? The situation here is slightly more complex. The army chief at this point of time was Gen Deepak Kapoor and the military secretary Lt Gen Avdhesh Prakash. It is a well known fact that these two gentlemen, both professionally and otherwise, differed sharply from my father (then a lieutenant general) and if the former had his way, my father would not have headed the Eastern Command. Professionally, there was nothing that could be used by the army chief to damage my father, so the ‘age issue’ was once again raked up to provoke him into disobeying a direct order to accept an incorrect year of birth. The army chief is the most powerful man in the army and a series of letters were written which have to be seen in their entirety to get the complete picture. Opinions should not be based on an isolated sentence which cites “the larger organisational interest”. Had this logic been true—that Lt Gen V.K. Singh ‘accepted’ the year of birth as 1950 so as to head the Eastern Command and later become army chief—he would have shut the cupola and not stirred the issue at all during his tenure as eastern army commander before taking over as the chief. However, he continued to write to the military secretary (Lt Gen Prakash), going systematically along accepted lines of redressing the clerical error within the army.

Honour and izzat are words that are emblazoned on a soldier’s heart. Apart from being the daughter of Gen V.K. Singh, I too am an army wife and have seen from close quarters the man I call my father stand up for what he considers is the right thing to do.

In this rather one-sided slanging match, it is also being implied by his critics that the army chief would be better off fighting for one-rank-one-pay, war memorials, weapon systems and all the other problems that haunt the system. I am not going to get drawn into what all he has done as the army chief; that’s best left to others and that is a part of his job anyway. For me, his worldview is best encapsulated in a quote from Ernest Hemingway that he uses often: “Few men for the right cause brave the disrespect of their fellow men, the censure of their colleagues and ignorance of society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields out painfully to change.”
(Mrinalini Singh is the daughter of Gen V.K. Singh) —as told to Chander Suta Dogra
How Can Great Oaks Sway With The Wind?

Comment: The MOD, Bureaucracy and self- centered former generals have succeeded in the "Succession Plot" covertly and cunningly engineered with great skills. The media and citizens continue to remain confused regarding promotions in the Military which is not based on date of birth. The whole episode is a sordid blot on the Nation already engulfed in scams. All it proves is that the corrupt have mastery over their destiny.

Cancelled telecom licenses: Impact on consumers, economy

2G Spectrum Scam- 122 Licenses cancelled- Corrupt Communication Corporates in the Dock
NDTV Correspondent, Updated: February 02, 2012 13:26 IST
New Delhi: India is the world's second-largest telecom market in terms of subscribers - it has 900 million subscribers. So far, the telecom sector has been crowded with more than a dozen players. Call rates in India among the lowest in the world.

Now that the Supreme Court has cancelled 122 licenses, here is a quick look at the likely impact.

EFFECT ON TELECOM SECTOR
Verdict to shake up India's fragmented telecom market
To lead to consolidation in the telecom sector
Non-serious, weak players will be weeded out
Spectrum to be linked to market prices and auctioned
Established players like Bharti, Vodafone, and Idea to benefit
Policy uncertainty for the telecom sector as the judgement is studied and evaluated

EFFECT ON CONSUMERS
Telecom rates to go up in long run as spectrum will be auctioned

EFFECT ON ECONOMY
Auction of spectrum will lead to another financial windfall for government
2G telecom auction may help plug government's fiscal deficit
May further dampen business climate and investor sentiment
Bad news for foreign investors in telecom, may further impact FDI
Read more at: Cancelled telecom licenses: Impact on consumers, economy

Comment: The Supreme Court verdict is historical and could be forerunner to the Strong Lokpal Bill. The citizens need to go after the black Money and Swiss Secret Acounts. Politicians who are criminalising the citizens must find their rightful place in the Jail!

Citizen's Right to Fight Corruption is Constitutional
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has today said that the right to file a complaint against a public servant under Prevention of Corruption Act is a constitutional right. The two judges also faulted the Prime Minister's office not taking appropriate action when Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy wrote in, asking for then telecom minister A Raja to be tried for corruption. Here are five big facts on this story: Click here

Gymkhana Clubs flout land lease rules

Annadale ground dispute with army in Shimla arbitration court
Ravinder Makhaik.
Not being able to dispossess the army authorities from the prized Annadale ground, the district administration has evoked an arbitration clause to resume a property that has been occupied by the army since 1955.
Talking to Hill Post, Onkar Sharma, deputy commissioner said, “Over 130 bighas of land at Annadale ground is under ownership of the government which on paper is recorded to be in possession of Gymkhana Club.”
“A lease signed between the government and the army authorities ended in 1982, and clause 4 in the lease agreement provides for arbitration should a dispute arise. We have evoked that arbitration clause before the divisional commissioner court at Shimla,” he added.
While the district administration has moved court, a signature campaign by the district cricket association (DCA) to get the ground vacated by the army has found tremendous support as over 75,000 till date have signed up.
“Annadale is the only big public ground in the state capital,” says Surinder Thakur, DCA president, “and the army should vacate it as the city desperately needs it.”
The association intends to collect 1 lakh signatures and submit a memorandum to defense minister AK Antony through state chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.
Relations between the state and the army authorities over the ground usage remain strained for the army even restricts helicopter landing facilities for civilian use on it.
Read more

A closer look at the Gymkhana clubs under scrutiny reveals:
The clubs have lease agreements for a period of 30 to 60 years. Defence lands— often huge tracts given to run the clubs to ensure "betterment of Members including the Garrison Officers". One needs to zero in on the terms and conditions of the lease agreements, which are grossly violated. These are: restricting public entry and use, discriminatory membership practices, non-payment of dues, non-submission of audited accounts and earning illegal revenue by letting out premises for weddings, parties, guest rooms and Guest fees. The Garrison Officers are relegated as second class members. The managements and Governing body owes an explanation to the nation for violating the Rules of the land. Even capital gains taxes are cleverly evaded.
Besides, the management and Governing Body are minting money by hiring out premises without paying a dime for tax. It's nothing but a robbery of citizens' resources, If these conserves of the privileged governing body can be brought to the negotiating table to renew their leases at reasonable rates and made to follow terms, the bigger battle of fighting corruption in high places can be won!

Colonel demands Commission: Malice gravitating to a Military disease

Colonel demands Rs23,000 as bribe, held
A colonel posted as commander at the Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) was arrested along with his deputy by the Central Bureau of Investigation after they were allegedly caught red handed accepting bribe from a contractor in Udhampur district.
Col Kunwar Vijay Partap, Commander 35 BRTF and JK Singh, engineer and second-in-command were arrested after CBI laid a trap on Tuesday over a complaint that they were demanding bribe from a contractor to release the payment for supplying batteries for vehicles.
Both the accused were produced before the court on Wednesday which later sent them on the police remand till Saturday. CBI sources said both were caught red handed while accepting the bribe of Rs23,000 for releasing the payment of Rs14.58 lakh. The duo had demanded money as “commission” for releasing the payment to the supplier. The officials also recovered the money charged as “commission” from them.
“It was decided that contractor’s payment would be released only when he pays 1.5% commission. Accordingly they had reached an agreement that the contractor will pay Rs23,000 before his payment is formally released”, said one of the CBI officials.
Soon after their arrest, the CBI team went into an overdrive and raided their residences in Udhampur where they allegedly recovered huge cash, investment details and some documents. -via DNA.
Colonel demands Rs23,000 as bribe, held

Comment by Sumit Ganguly
These episodes underscore a tragic reality- the once impregnable bastion of the armed forces has now also fallen prey to the temptations of making a quick buck, in flagrant violation of professional norms, moral rectitude and legal strictures. Taken together they constitute a disturbing postscript to a number of other, larger and wider scandals that have wracked India in the recent past. They underscore that no institution in the country is now without some taint and that the quality of India’s democracy is now at risk.

Adarsh scam: Bombay HC seeks status report from Income Tax dept

Published: Wednesday, Nov 23, 2011, 20:10 IST
Place: Mumbai | Agency: PTI
The Bombay High Court today asked the Income Tax authorities to file a status report within four weeks on its probe into the finances of the persons who were allotted flats in the controversial Adarsh Housing Society.

A division bench of Justices Sharad Bobde and VK Tahilramani was hearing a bunch of public interest litigations regarding the Adarsh scam, where environmental and civic norms were allegedly flouted while granting certain concessions to the 31-storey skyrise in South Mumbai.

Praveen Vategaokar, who has filed a PIL seeking inquiry under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act into how the 100-odd members of the society financed the purchase of flats, pointed out that in six cases, the IT department closed the inquiry, without giving reasons.

The bench therefore asked the IT lawyer to produce a report on the probe, stating the reasons for closing the inquiry in these cases and status of the probe in others, within four weeks.

The six cases mentioned by Vategaokar include that of former IAS officer and MP, Shrinivas Patil.

A Mehta, the counsel of Simpreet Singh, another petitioner, demanded that the high court monitor the probe as CBI has not made any progress after taking over the case in February this year, barring filing six reports in the court.

He also stated that in a related criminal case, where CBI was probing missing of a file related to Adarsh from the Maharashtra Urban Development Department, no chargesheet has been filed yet, though three clerks of the concerned department were arrested.

Responding to the query by Justice Bobade on when the CBI is going to file the affidavit, its counsel DN Salvi said the agency would file final report/chargesheet in the missing file case within six weeks.

He said that statements of all the 43 officers who had handled the file had been recorded, and hard disks of three computers had been seized for examination and are sent to a private agency.

However, the division bench then asked why the hard disks were not sent to the Central Forensic Laboratory (CFL) at Hyderabad, Salvi replied that CFL needed at least six months to give the report.

"So as to expedite the matter, disks were sent to a private agency which is reliable," he said.

The high court, however, still asked the investigating agency to file an affidavit in this regard.

CBI has filed FIR against 13 persons, including former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, in the Adarsh case.
Adarsh scam: Bombay HC seeks status report from Income Tax dept

Encroachments and Security of Cantonment Lands

Inquiry into NOC on IAF Land in Srinagar
On receipt of complaint a preliminary enquiry was conducted into the matter related to issuing of No Objection Certificate (NOC) on Air Force’s land in Srinagar. It was found that prima-facie there have been irregularities in the issue ofNOCs which may have wider implications. In order to get the matter thoroughly investigated and fix responsibility the Government have entrusted the enquiry to CBI.
This information was given by Defence Minister Shri AK Antony in written reply to ShrimatiHemaMalini in Rajya Sabha today.
PK /NN (Release ID :77400)
Inquiry into NOC on IAF Land in Srinagar

Need to Amend Provision Regarding Permission of C-in-C for Transfer of Property in Cantt Areas
As per Governor General Order No.179 dated 12thSeptember, 1836, whenever a value of house, buildings or property exceeds Rs.5000/-, the sale can be effected only with the prior sanction of the Government.
Representations have been received and matter of raising the limit Rs.5000/¬- is under consideration.
This information was given by Defence Minister Shri AK Antony in written reply to Shri AvinashRaiKhanna in Rajya Sabha today. PK /NN
(Release ID :77407)
Need to Amend Provision Regarding Permission of C-in-C for Transfer of Property in Cantt Areas

Army Officers and the Golden Norms

This is an excellent write up.
Best wishes.
Harbhajan Singh
Please find an excellent article, ARMY OFFICERS AND SEVEN GOLDEN NORMS by Veteran Bombay Sapper Maj Gen Mrinal Suman, AVSM, VSM, PhD.
Gen Suman is a soldier, a scholar, a thinker and a prolific writer on matters Military and National Security. He is known for being frank and forthright in expressing his views; and, his articles are a reader’s delight.
Veterans are welcome to comment on the article and fwd the same to Maj Gen Mrinal Suman

Is corruption endemic?

August 11, 2011
Army Corruption Hits India
This isn’t going to help quiet the angry mobs in New Delhi: senior Indian army officials have been accused of misappropriating prime real estate built for soldiers wounded in the line of duty for themselves and their families.
The Indian Comptroller and Auditor General office’s willingness to publish such a report and the ability of protestors to demonstrate relatively peacefully are positive indicators of the health of Indian democracy and civil society. But democracy and civil society aren’t enough to guarantee India’s continued ascension to global superpower-status.
Corruption is endemic in Indian society. That corruption is increasingly making the already unwieldy state almost ungovernable — demonstrators unhappy with the most recent rash of scandals have now moved off the streets and into parliamentary sessions, preventing lawmakers from moving ahead with their legislative work.
The leaders of the world’s rising superpowers’ would do well to listen to the wise words of the Dalai Lama. Corruption is a cancer of the state.
And I am left wondering: what, exactly, is the moral difference between stealing military funds and treason?
click here for the original post