Digvijay Singh gets bail in Gadkari's defamation case

December 21, 2012

digvijay

New Delhi, December 21: Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh was granted bail by a Delhi court on Friday in connection with a criminal defamation case filed against him by BJP President Nitin Gadkari.

Mr. Singh appeared before Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar in pursuance to the summons issued against him by the court on November 17 and the judge granted bail to him on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety of the like amount.

Outside the court, Mr. Singh told reporters that he will now prove all his charges against Mr. Gadkari.

“Now I can say everything in front of the court the way Mr. Gadkari has worked as a businessman and how he has links with various other businessmen, which all companies of his were fake and how he earned profits,” he said.

The court after finding “prima facie” evidence against Mr. Singh had directed him to appear before it to face trial for the offence punishable under section 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the IPC.

The defamation case was filed by Mr. Gadkari against the Congress general secretary who had allegedly accused him of having business links with his party MP Ajay Sancheti.

It was also alleged in the complaint that Mr. Singh accused Mr. Gadkari of pocketing huge sum to the tune of Rs 490 crore in the coal block allocation to Mr. Sancheti.

Mr. Gadkari, in his statement recorded in the court, had denied having any business ties with Mr. Sancheti and had said Mr. Singh levelled “totally false and defamatory” allegations against him to “give the impression that I have been responsible for allocation of the coal mines” to Mr. Sancheti.

The BJP leader, in his petition filed through advocate Ajay Digpaul, had sought Mr. Singh’s prosecution under sections 499 and 500 of the IPC.

The court had also said Mr. Singh will have the opportunity to put his defence during the trial.

In his petition, Mr. Gadkari had alleged that Mr. Singh had levelled defamatory allegations against him to lower his dignity in the public at large and it was made with wrongful intent to malign and tarnish his image.

“I am grateful to Mr. Gadkari for giving me the opportunity to say in court what I had said before the press,” Mr. Singh said.

“I stick to my comments (regarding Mr. Gadkari). I just need to do more research,” he said.

The Congress leader also said, “My aim is to highlight what BJP is upto while it says it’s fighting against corruption”, adding that he has no “personal ill will” towards Mr. Gadkari.

The court has slated the matter for further proceedings on January 31.

Earlier, Mr. Gadkari had said that Mr. Singh had deliberately projected him as a business partner of Mr. Sancheti with whom he has neither any links nor did he receive any benefit from him.

In his complaint, Mr. Gadkari has said the Congress-led UPA government is facing a lot of heat on account of its irregularities as brought out by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in coal blocks allocation and accused Mr. Singh of making baseless allegations against him to divert attention from the issue.

The court on October 16 had reserved its order on the complaint after recording statements of two witnesses - Gadkari and BJP National Secretary Bhupinder Yadav, also a Rajya Sabha MP.

In his statement to the court, Mr. Yadav had said on September 3, he read news articles in various newspapers about the alleged business relations between Mr. Gadkari and Mr. Sancheti and it was “totally false” that Mr. Gadkari had earned Rs 490 crore from coal allocation through Mr. Sancheti.

Mr. Yadav had also said the news was “defamatory“.

The court had also recorded the statement of an authorised representative of a national English daily in which the alleged defamatory statement of Mr. Singh was published.


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News Network
May 10,2020

May 10: Delhi recorded five more deaths due to coronavirus, while 381 fresh cases of the virus were reported, the city government said on Sunday.

With the fresh cases, the virus tally in the national capital has climbed to 6,923.

Between midnight of May 8 and midnight of May 9, five fresh fatalities due to the virus were reported, taking the death toll to 73, the government said in its health bulletin.

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News Network
February 1,2020

New Delhi, Feb 1: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promised to make India a higher education destination, as she unveiled the government’s plan to invest in the education sector in her Budget speech.

“We propose Rs 99,300 crore for education sector in 2020-21 and Rs 3,000 crore for skill development,” said Sitharaman. While there is an increase of 4.6 per cent in the education spending than last year, the budget for skill development remains almost unchanged. Sitharaman also announced holding IND-SAT exam in African and Asian countries, for foreign candidates who wish to study in India.

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Further giving boost to India’s import of skilled human capital, Sitharaman said, “I propose special bridge course for nurses and medical professional for labour export to countries who open their door for such jobs.”

“Steps will be be taken to attract external commercial borrowing and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the education sector,” the finance minister added.

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The government has also proposed to attach medical colleges with district hospitals on PPP model to deal with shortage of doctors, Sitharaman added.

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News Network
May 21,2020

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The report analyses various cyberattacks within India during the pandemic and reveals that threat actors targeted the States with COVID-19-themed attacks aimed at exploiting user trust.

The sudden surge in the frequency of attacks witnessed from February 2020 to mid-April 2020 indicates that scamsters across the world were exploiting the widespread panic around coronavirus at both the individual and corporate level, the company said in a statement.

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The key threats seen during this period ranged from phishing attacks to rogue apps disguised as COVID-19 information apps that targeted users sensitive data.

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Smaller cities saw over 250 attacks being blocked per 10,000 users.

Users from Ghaziabad and Lucknow seem to have faced almost six and four times the number of attacks, respectively, as Bengaluru users.

In Kerala, regions like Kottayam, Kannur, Kollam, and Kochi saw the highest hits with 462, 374, 236, and 147 attacks respectively, while the state as a whole saw around 2,000 attacks during the period, the highest thus far in the country.

This was followed by Punjab with 207 attacks and Tamil Nadu at 184 attacks, the statement said.

A majority of the recorded attacks were phishing attacks with sophisticated campaigns that could easily snare even the most educated users, it said.

These attacks were aimed at heightening users fears and creating a sense of urgency to take action.

The report noted phishing attacks where scamsters posed as representatives of the United States Department of the Treasury, the World Health Organisation, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Users were encouraged to visit links that would automatically download malware on the host computer such as the Agent Tesla keylogger or Lokibot information-stealing malware, infamous banking Trojans such as Trickbot or Zeus Sphinx, and even disastrous ransomware.

Other attacks included infected COVID-19 Android apps like CoronaSafetyMask that scam users with promises of masks for an upfront payment; the spyware app Project Spy; and seemingly genuine apps that are infected with dangerous malware like banking Trojans such as Ginp, Anubis and Cerberus, it was stated.

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