ACB gets court notice for slow probe into ‘₹600-crore scam’

Rajasthan high court issued a notice to the state’s anticorruption bureau (ACB) on Tuesday, seeking its reply in three weeks on why it has not investigated into the charge that the Vedanta Group got a benefit of ₹600 crore from the state government during the disinvestment of Hindustan Zinc Limited.

The notice was issued on a petition filed by Ajay Kumar Jain, an advocate. His counsels Aditya Jain and Ravi Saini urged the court to should ask the ACB for a fair and speedy probe into Jain’s allegation.

In the petition, Jain said, when Hindustan Zinc Limited, a public limited company, was to be privatized in 2003, the mines department by a conspiracy revoked the mining lease for rock phosphate to lower the company’s value.

Rock phosphate mining lease is given only to government corporations or companies, the petition pointed out, adding that licence for excavation of the mineral cannot be given to any private party.

In 2008, the lease of Hindustan Zinc was restored, benefitting Vedanta Group up to Rs 600 crore, the petition alleged.

The petition also informed the court that an ACB officer got to know about this scam in 2011 and suggested a preliminary inquiry into the case. The PE was registered on January 13, 2011.

The petitioner said the PE was completed on August 30, 2011, and based on its findings, an FIR under the Prevention of Corruption Act and 120-B of IPC was recommended. The FIR was not registered until 2015.

The petitioner moved an application before the ACB cases special judge in September 2015 for registration of the FIR. The case was lodged on September 26, 2015.

Jain said that the anti-corruption bureau had not done an investigation into the case in the last two years.

Pavan Kaushik, head of Corporate Communication of Hindustan Zinc (Vedanta), said he has nothing to comment.

The Rajasthan high Court on Tuesday took an undertaking from the parents of the accused in the case of rape of a minor. The minor victim is pregnant. The parents said that they want to accept the victim as the wife of their son.

The 17-year-old victim is pregnant and the high court has refused the plea of the victim to abort her 21-week old foetus after a medical report was submitted.

On July 24, the high court ordered the parents of the accused youth, Shivlal, to appear personally in order to take responsibility for the maintenance of the victim and the child born to her.

During the hearing , the father of the accused, Bhura and mother Shrwani were present in court. Giving the undertaking to the court, the parents said ‘an FIR was lodged against Shiv lal, who is our son, and arrested by the police and at present he is in judicial custody. The victim was pregnant with his son. We are ready and willing to kept the victim being wife of Shiv Lal and her child being their grand-child and are ready and willing to maintain her as per their capacity.’ HTC The task of the police is multifarious and I feel that if the cops have a grip over the locality which they have been assigned, then there shouldn’t be any problems in executing their responsibilities and being constantly in touch with the situation at the ground level. Illegal weapons being smuggled Regular workshops and training sessions are held to train our staff in techniques to deal with cyber crime. We will continue to sensitise the police through such initiatives that will contribute a lot to make us more adept at solving such cases.

Our target will be to bring down the number of unnatural deaths.