Tatra scam: CBI searches homes of two ex-army officers

April 18, 2012

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New Delhi, April 18: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday conducted search operations at the homes of two former army officers in Delhi and Noida and recovered key documents related to its probe into alleged irregularities in the procurement of Tatra trucks, sources said.

CBI sources said searches were also being conducted at the residence of an official of the Britain-based Vectra group that supplies the all-terrain heavy duty Tatra trucks to the Indian Army through defence public sector undertaking Bharat Earth Movers Ltd. (BEML).

The sources said raids were conducted at the homes of Brig (retd) P.C. Das in Delhi and Col (retd) Anil Datta in Noida. Searches were also conducted at the home of Vectra employee Anil Mansaramani.

The sources said three teams of CBI sleuths conducted the searches that began early on Wednesday morning. Some crucial documents expected to help in investigating the scam-tainted truck deal have been found, the sources claimed.

The CBI search operations come a day after the agency questioned three people, including former BEML director V Mohan, the company's present chief V R S Natarajan and Vectra group chief Ravinder Rishi, in connection with alleged lapses in the supply of Tatra trucks.

Tatra is a Czech manufacturer and owned by Britain's Vectra that supplies truck parts to BEML.

BEML assembles the trucks and sells them off to the army. Some 7,000 Tatra trucks have been bought by the army since 1986.

Army chief Gen V K Singh blew the lid off the alleged scam after he alleged in March that he'd been offered a Rs 14 crore bribe to clear a deal for supplying sub-standard Tatra trucks.

The army in a March 5 press release took the names of Tatra and BEML, alleging that Lt Gen (retd) Tejinder Singh had offered a bribe on behalf of Tatra and Vectra.

The agency was probing why BEML decided to procure Tatra parts from Tatra Sipox (Britain), a private company, from 1997 when it was doing so through Omnipol (a state-owned unit in Czech Republic) since 1986.

The sources said CBI was trying to find out why BEML officials signed an agreement with Tatra Sipox (Britain) in a hurried manner June 14, 1997 in Bangalore, three days after they had a meeting with the firm and its associate companies' officials in Slovakia.

One more company, Venus Projects Ltd., in which Rishi allegedly has some stakes, was under the CBI scanner as he allegedly used it for purchasing spare parts for Tatra trucks, they said.

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Agencies
July 7,2020

India's COVID-19 tally raced past the seven lakh-mark with 22,252 fresh infections on Tuesday, five days after crossing the six lakh post, while the death toll climbed to 20,160 as 467 more people succumbed to the disease, according to the Union health ministry.

With this, the country has recorded over 20,000 cases of the infection for the fifth consecutive day.

India's coronavirus infection caseload stands at 7,19,665, the ministry's data updated at 8 am showed.

With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 4,39,947, while there are 2,59,557 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country.

"Thus, around 61.13 % of patients have recovered so far," an official said.

The total number of confirmed cases also includes foreigners.

Of the 467 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 204 are from Maharashtra, 61 from Tamil Nadu, 48 from Delhi, 29 from Karnataka, 24 from Uttar Pradesh, 22 from West Bengal, 17 from Gujarat.

Telangana and Haryana reported 11 deaths each; Madhya Pradesh nine; Andhra Pradesh seven; Jammu and Kashmir six; Rajasthan and Punjab five each; Bihar, Kerala and Odisha two each; and Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand one each.

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News Network
June 25,2020

New Delhi, Jun 25: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday hit out at Congress for "unceremoniously sacking" its spokesperson and said that leaders in the opposition party are "feeling suffocated".

To substantiate his point, Shah referred to the recent Congress Working Committee (CWC) meet in which senior members and younger members raised a few issues, however, they were "shut down".

Taking to Twitter, Shah posted two English dailies' articles titled -- "Not scared of PM Modi, but many in the party dodge him: Rahul at Congress Working Committee meet" and "Congress removes Sanjay Jha as party spokesperson after critical article".

Last week, Jha was dropped as AICC spokesperson and Abhishek Dutt and Sadhna Bharti appointed as National Media Panelist of Congress party.

"During the recent CWC meet, senior members and younger members raised a few issues. But, they were shouted down. A party spokesperson was unceremoniously sacked. The sad truth is - leaders are feeling suffocated in Congress," the Union Minister tweeted.

Meanwhile, Shah also targetted Congress on the completion of 45 years of emergency, which was imposed by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on June 25, 1975 and asked the party to self introspect.

"As one of India's opposition parties, Congress needs to ask itself: Why does the Emergency mindset remain? Why are leaders who do not belong to 1 dynasty unable to speak up? Why are leaders getting frustrated in Congress? Else, their disconnect with people will keep widening," he wrote.

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Fairman
 - 
Thursday, 25 Jun 2020

Jha the spokesperson, tried to be under the payroll of BJP, so disciplinary action was imminent.

 

Discipline has no compromise.

Mohammed
 - 
Thursday, 25 Jun 2020

If i am not wrong you have already purchased suffocated leaders from congress.

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Agencies
February 11,2020

New Delhi, Feb 11: Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari on Tuesday said the party will review why it failed to meet its own expectations in the Assembly polls and saw a moral victory in the fact that the party's vote share has increased since 2015.

"Delhi must have given mandate after careful thinking. Our vote percentage has increased from 32 per cent to around 38 per cent. Delhi did not reject us and the increase (in vote share) is a good sign for us," he told reporters.

He said the BJP hopes that there would be less blame game and more work in the national capital and congratulated Arvind Kejriwal on his party's victory in the polls.

After winning the Patparganj seat, AAP senior leader Manish Sisodia accused the BJP of indulging in the politics of hate.

"We indulge in politics of development not politics of hate. We're against the roadblock in Shaheen Bagh as we were earlier," he said.

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