Interim relief for Teesta Setalvad, husband; no arrest till Aug 10

July 24, 2015

Mumbai, Jul 24: In a breather to social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband, the Bombay High Court today granted the duo 17-day interim relief from arrest in a CBI case alleging that her company received Rs 1.8 crore from abroad without mandatory approval from Centre.Teesta

Justice Mridula Bhatkar, while granting Teesta and her husband Javed Anand interim protection from arrest till August 10, said the duo was already given protection by the sessions court.

Teesta and Anand moved the high court seeking anticipatory bail after a special CBI court today rejected their pre-arrest bail pleas and also refused to extend the interim relief granted to them earlier on July 17.

"At this stage I do not want to go into merits. Is there any chance of the accused persons absconding? If no, then interim protection can be granted for a period of two weeks," Justice Bhatkar said.

The court directed Teesta and her husband to appear before the office of Economic Offences Wing of CBI on July 27 and 30 and on August 3 and 6 for recording their statement from 12pm to 3pm.

The court refused to agree to the CBI's demand to direct the duo to appear before the agency everyday.

"They (Teesta and Javed) have been appearing before you (CBI) from July 17. You must have done some investigation. Everyday appearance is not required," Justice Bhatkar said.

Public Prosecutor Sandeep Shinde, appearing for CBI, argued that the offence was of a serious nature and custodial interrogation was required.

The court has posted their anticipatory bail petitions for final hearing on August 10.

Soon after the sessions court rejected her bail pleas, Teesta told the court that she was shocked and aggrieved.

"I am shocked and aggrieved by the verdict as this is a petty offence. My sympathisers feel that this is an attempt (by the government) to intimidate and possibly eliminate us by the powers (sic)," she said.

The CBI had on July 8 registered a case against Teesta and Anand alleging that her firm Sabrang Communication and Publishing Pvt Limited (SCPPL) received around 2.9 lakh USD in foreign donations in violation of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).

According to the agency, SCPPL was not registered under FCRA for collecting money from abroad and the amount of nearly Rs 1.8 crore (2.9 lakh USD) was, therefore, received in violation of the Act as the organisation needed to seek prior approval from the Union Home Ministry.

Teesta and her husband, through their lawyer, had told the special CBI court that they were innocent and were falsely implicated.

Her advocate Mihir Desai told the court that the only reason why the agency wanted to arrest them was to humiliate them for their work in Gujarat.

However, CBI in their reply, last Friday, had said that the motive behind the transfer of foreign contribution to SCPPL reflected interference towards the internal security and activities of India.

"Such act of foreign donor would prejudicially affect the security, strategic, scientific and economic interest of the state and also affect the harmony between religious, social, linguistic or regional groups, castes or communities", the CBI had said in its reply while opposing her plea.

The agency said the allegations against them (Setalvad and Anand) are serious in nature and it is proposed to unravel all the contours of the offence and the conspiracy during the investigation.

Setalvad alleged that the FIR registered against her and her husband was for the purpose of harassing and torturing them, a charge rejected by CBI.

"The applicants are deliberately mixing up the offences alleged against them with non-related issues in order to divert the attention from the serious charges against them," the agency had said.

The CBI had also told the court that when their premises were searched on July 14 this year there was total resistance and non-cooperation from their side.

"During the search, an agreement dated September 22, 2006 between Ford Foundation and SCPPL were seized which clearly showed that the remittances were grants. There is no mention of any 'consultancy' therein," the reply had said.

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News Network
June 8,2020

New Delhi, Jun 8: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has gone into self-quarantine after developing sore throat and fever, and will get himself tested for COVID-19 on Tuesday, officials said on Monday.

They said the chief minister, who is also a diabetic, was feeling unwell since Sunday afternoon.

"He has mild fever and sore throat since Sunday afternoon. As advised by doctors, the chief minister will undergo COVID-19 test on Tuesday morning," officials said.

Officials said the CM had attended a Cabinet meeting on Sunday morning and thereafter, he did not attend any meeting.

The chief minister has been holding most of his meetings via video conferencing from his official residence for past two days.

This come as the number of coronavirus cases in the national capital crossed the 28,000-mark with 1,282 fresh infections while the death toll climbed to 812 on Sunday, a health bulletin issued by the Delhi government said. According to the health bulletin, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Delhi rose to 28,936 with 1,282 fresh cases.

A total of 51 fatalities were reported on June 6, the bulletin said, adding that these lives were lost between May 8 and June 5. It, however, said the cumulative death figure refers to fatalities where the primary cause of death was found to be COVID-19, according to a report of the Death Audit Committee on the basis of the case-sheets received from various hospitals.

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News Network
January 27,2020

New Delhi, Jan 27: Remember the story of two friends coming face-to-face with a bear in a forest? One of the two friends climbs the tree to save his life and the other, not knowing how to, lays on the ground, breathless, pretending to be dead.

Well, that lesson turned out to be useful for this man who pretended to be dead when a tiger had both his paws on the man's chest.

Yes, that is right. IFS officer Parveen Kaswan recently shared a video of a man lying under a tiger, with their faces extremely close to each other with the caption, "You want to see how does a narrow escape looks like in case of an encounter with a #tiger. #Tiger was cornered by the crowd. But fortunately, the end was fine for both man and tiger. Sent by a senior."

Another Twitter user shared the full 30-second video in the comments. He also said that the incident occured in Tumsar in Bhandara district, Maharashtra. The spine-chilling clip shows a tiger running freely in the fields trying to avoid people who have surrounded him and are trying to shoo him away.

In his quest to run away, the scared tiger grabs a human. When he sees that people are still approaching him and trying to scare him away, he gets up and runs away for his life. All this while, the man who was captured by the animal lays still on the ground and does not make an attempt to get free.

This is what stuck with Twitter and they are praising the man for his presence of mind.

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News Network
March 6,2020

New Delhi, Mar 6: Shares of YES Bank and State Bank of India came under huge selling pressure on Friday as developments unfolded regarding SBI picking stake in the private lender. Shares of the lender hit record low of Rs 5.55, plunging 85 per cent, and were trading below its previous low of Rs 8.16 hit on March 9, 2009.

SBI, on the other hand, slumped 11 per cent to Rs 257.35 on the BSE. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was trading with a cut of over 3 per cent at 37,251.37 level.

In the past three months, share price of the private lender has plunged 41 per cent, while the state-owned lender has slipped 14 per cent. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex has dipped 5.6 per cent till Thursday.

On Thursday, the Reserve Bank of India superseded the board of troubled private sector lender YES Bank and imposed a 30-day moratorium on it “in the absence of a credible revival plan” amid a “serious deterioration” in its financial health.

During the moratorium, which came into effect from 6 pm on Thursday, YES Bank will not be allowed to grant or renew any loans, and “incur any liability”, except for payment towards employees’ salaries, rent, taxes and legal expenses, among others.

This is the first time that a bank of this size will be put under a moratorium by the RBI.

“The financial position of YES Bank had undergone a steady decline “largely due to inability of the bank to raise capital to address potential loan losses and resultant downgrades, triggering invocation of bond covenants by investors, and withdrawal of deposits,” RBI said in a statement.

“After the moratorium, the next step will be to infuse to money and keep the bank afloat. So from shareholders’ point of view, the future is certainly hazy as the capital requirement is huge. The good part, however, is that the RBI has stepped in and depositors don't have to worry,” says Siddharth Purohit, a research analyst at SMC Securities.

Meanwhile, analysts at Nomura believe that placing the Bank under moratorium implies that equity value in the bank would be negligible, and that the chances of private capital participating in future capital raising plan are near zero.

"Any resolution for Yes Bank is more proposed from the perspective of deposit holders and systemic stability, and not from the perspective of Yes Bank equity investors or even perpetual bond holders," they wrote in a note dated March 6.

In another development, SBI’s Board Thursday gave in-principle approval to consider an “investment opportunity” in YES Bank, even as it said “no decision had yet been taken to pick up stake in the bank”.

According to a  report, highly-placed sources indicated a rescue plan involving SBI and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) was being discussed and an announcement in this regard might be made soon.

“While the finer details of the deal are being worked out, it is anticipated that both SBI and LIC together will take a 51 per cent stake in the bank, with a one-year lock-in period,” the report said.

Most analysts believe it is a positive step for the Indian financial sector as the government has tried to avoid a repeat of IL&FS-like crisis.

“The move is a positive step for the financial sector as a whole. By this, the government has tried to avoid a repeat of IL&FS-like crisis and has saved the depositors,” said AK Prabhakar, Head of Research at IDBI Capital. While we know that YES Bank has a huge pile of bad loans, SBI is the only bank that has the capacity to absorb it, he added.

However, the valuation at which YES bank would be taken over remains a cause of concern.

Global brokerage firm JP Morgan Thursday cut its target price for YES Bank on Thursday to Rs 1 per share, taking into account the potential fall in the lender’s net worth due to stressed assets.

“We believe forced bailout investors will likely want the bank to be acquired at near-zero value to account for risks associated with the stress book and likely loss of deposits. We think the bank will need to be recapitalised at nominal equity value and could test dilution of additional tier 1 (AT1) capital. We remain underweight and cut our target price to Rs 1 as we believe net worth is largely impaired,” JP Morgan said in a note.

Global brokerage firm Nomura estimates a need of Rs 25,000-44,000 crore and adjusted for Rs 7,400 crore of current coverage, if the current stress of Rs 65,000-70,000 crore faces 70 per cent loss given default (LGD).

"It implies Rs 18,000-37,000 crore needed for provisioning against the current net worth of Rs 25,700 crore Also, to run as going concern, the bank would require over Rs 20,000 crore of CET-1 capital as well," the note said.

YES Bank has registered slippages of Rs 12,000 crore so far in FY20, while it has placed Rs 30,000 crore of loan assets under the watch list. Its deposits stood at Rs 2.09 trillion on September 30, 2019, while its advances totalled Rs 2.24 trillion. The bank has delayed publishing its December quarter results by a month to March 14.

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