Pvt airline graft case: CBI pulled up for clean chit to bankers

NEW DELHI: The CBI has been pulled up by a special court for giving clean chit to some bank officials in a case involving Paramount Airways Pvt Ltd and a former CMD of Oriental Insurance Company Ltd for allegedly causing loss of about Rs 442 crore to five public sector banks.

The court said the investigating officer (IO) has given a clean chit to the bank officials despite there being “prima facie overwhelming material on record against them”.

According to the CBI charge sheet, Paramount Airways Pvt Ltd (PAPL), its managing director M Thiagrajan, then CMD of Oriental Insurance Company Ltd (OICL) M Ramadoss, and three other officers were accused of causing wrongful loss to five public sector banks and the insurance company, against which claims of Rs 442 crore were raised due to payment defaults by the airline.

Special CBI Judge Kamini Lau said the November 2010 investigation report of the insurance firm on PAPL showed the total amount of reported claims by the various banks was Rs 441.30 crore, prima facie showing the involvement of bankers.

“All these documents also point out towards the severe irregularities, lapses and omissions committed by the officials of the various banks, that is, State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of India and IDBI etc. in the commercial dealings with PAPL,” the court said.

It said the CBI prosecutor and IO were unable to answer its queries on the issue of IO giving a clean chit to the bank officials despite prima facie overwhelming material on record against them.

“Perusal of the final report (charge sheet) also showed that the IO had recommended departmental action against the bank officials. I fail to understand under what provisions of law the IO, whose powers to investigate are circumscribed under the Code of Criminal Procedure, could have even done so.

“The possibility of this being an attempt to divert the course of investigations qua the bankers cannot be ruled out or else there could have been no other reason why he had chosen to exercise a jurisdiction where none existed,” the judge said.

The CBI, which had registered a complaint in July 2011, has alleged that the accused conspired to cheat and cause loss to the five banks and OICL, which had to bear claims of Rs 442 crore on default of payment by Paramount Airways to the banks.

It had alleged that Chennai-based Paramount Airways had taken credit insurance from OICL for its multiple bank guarantees to cover its transactions with state-owned oil companies. As the airline defaulted in paying to oil companies under the contract guarantee, the oil companies invoked bank guarantees and the banks in turn raised the claims of Rs 442 crore on OICL, the CBI had claimed.

Besides PAPL, Ramadoss and Thiagrajan, the other accused are former deputy general manager of OICL V Harshvardhan, OICL general manager Niraj Kumar and DGM of OICL Chandra Shekhar Tandon.

The probe agency has alleged that Ramadoss of OICL entered into a criminal conspiracy with Thiagrajan, abused his official position and favoured the airline in issuance of 220 credit insurance policies during 2005-10. MUMBAI: Mumbai police have shared with their Thane counterparts details of the cases registered against Chhota Shakeel, the close aide of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, officials said.

Thane police had sought this information to see whether they can invoke the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the Thane case in which Dawood’s younger brother, Iqbal Kaskar, has been arrested.

“Thane police had requested us to provide details of the cases against Chhota Shakeel and we have provided them all the required information,” an official said.

“It was to study whether they can invoke the stringent MCOCA in the extortion cases, registered in Thane in which Dawood Ibrahim, his brothers Anees and Iqbal, close aide Chhota Shakeel and other gang members shown as accused,” he added. According to the official, Thane police are taking legal help to invoke MCOCA in extortion racket in which Iqbal Kaskar was arrested by its Anti Extortion Cell (AEC).

“To invoke MCOCA, there should be two chargesheets that proceeded to trial by a sessions court against one of the accused in the last 10 years. Shakeel’s earlier cases can be a perfect base to invoke MCOCA in current extortion case, as there are more than two charge sheets proceeded to trial in the court,” he said.

The police official, “Chhota Shakeel has dozens of charge sheets proceeded to trial by sessions court in the last 10 years, so police are examining whether this can be help in invoking MCOCA in Thane extortion cases.”

Kaskar and two of his aides -- Mumtaz Sheikh and Israr Ali Jamil Sayyad -- were arrested on September 18 by the Antiextortion Cell (AEC) of Thane Police, led by “encounter specialist” Pradeep Sharma and his team, in an extortion case of Rs 30 lakh and four flats from a builder.

They had also been booked following another complaint of extortion lodged by a Thanebased jeweller.

Recently, the AEC of the Thane crime branch had arrested Borivali-based businessman Pankaj Gangar in connection with the extortion racket. Gangar, a close aide of “matka king” Pappu Savla, had been sending Rs 10-15 lakh per month to Dawood’s aide Chhota Shakeel, the police had said earlier. He used to transfer the money to Shakeel through illegal hawala transactions, they had said.

Chhota Shakeel, whose role had also emerged in the extortion racket case, had been declared a wanted accused, the official said. NEW DELHI: The Union government is planning to frame a national policy to standardise the training and functioning of allied eyecare professionals, including opticians, a health ministry official has said.

The allied eyecare sector is unregulated and there is no uniformity in the standards of training for opticians.

Thousands of unregulated opticians provide primary vision care ranging from sight testing to diagnosis and treatment, going beyond their brief.

According to government estimates, there are around 90,000 opticians who are neither registered under the National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB) nor have they completed a full-time graduate programme in optometry, a course which deals with the examination, diagnosis, treatment and management of diseases of the visual system. The Union health ministry has called a meeting tomorrow of various stakeholders including ophthalmologists, dispensing opticians, opthalmic assistants, optometrists and other eyecare providers in the country.

“The aim of the meeting is to understand the variances in the standards in eyecare related training particularly with respect to skills and competency of eyecare providers who are non-doctors,” said a senior health ministry official.

According to Prof. Praveen Vashist, in-charge, Community Ophthalmology at Dr R P Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, AIIMS, the responsibility of prescribing spectacles as well as the medical diagnosis and management of eye disease lies with optometrists.

“But what happens is that there are a large number of optical units, which should only be dispensing spectacles, are also prescribing (spectacles) and providing diagnosis and treatment without having any recognised degree or training,” he laments.

There are many opticians who practice eyecare and offer diagnosis without any degree or training and their only qualification is that their parents or forefathers were in the same business, he said. “Therefore, it is essential that the sector is regulated.”

As chemist shops are run under regulation and they have to have a pharmacist with them, all optical shops should mandatorily have trained optometrists if they are prescribing spectacles and performing sight testing, he suggested.

Another health ministry official said currently, several short-duration courses are being offered by institutes without appropriate didactic and practical guidelines and curriculum.

Aspiring students get lured by such institutes posing as legal entities and providing short-term skill-based courses in eyecare, the official explained.

“Those completing such courses lack knowledge and skills and if they manage to get into the system they pose a great threat,” he said.

“One wrong drop or misdiagnosed vision problem may led to disastrous eye care outcomes.” As per a World Health Organisation 2010 data, 39 million people were blind and 246 million were visually impaired globally, with India accounting for 20 per cent of the global blindness and visual impairment burden.