Srinagar: Central Bureau of Investigation conducted a search operation at the premises top official after it arrested Chief Horticulture Officer (CHO) for demanding and accepting huge sum of money as a bribe in Jammu and Kashmir.
CBI said that it arrested a CHO while receiving a Rs 10 lakh bribe to resolve departmental issues, including a favourable posting and promotion of a junior colleague, officials said Saturday.
The role of a senior officer in the Jammu and Kashmir government, is also under the scanner of the CBI, they said. The shocking demand of a bribe by a senior officer to be considered for posting and promotion prompted an official to approach the Central Bureau of Investigation with a complaint, they said.
”A case was registered on complaint against the accused and others on the allegations of demanding a bribe of Rs 10 lakh for the complainant’s posting and to resolve his departmental issues including promotion,” a CBI spokesperson said. After doing necessary verification and groundwork, the CBI laid an ambush and arrested the CHO Sarabjit Singh and middleman Gohar Ahmed Dar red-handed during an alleged bribe exchange, officials said.
”Searches were conducted at the premises of both the accused and the premises of the Special Secretary(Horticulture). During the searches, cash of Rs 3.5 lakh and other documents including movable/immovable property were recovered,” the spokesperson said.
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday said that they have arrested middleman Jeetendra Prasad and Delhi government school Hindi teacher Dinesh Singh Kushwaha for allegedly receiving Rs 2.60 crore from an accused involved in Powerbank app (Chinese loan app) case for getting his work done.
This is the same Chinese app by which Chinese lenders cheated Indian nationals to the tune of Rs 250 crore.
The two were produced before a special PMLA court which sent them to ED custody till March 3.
“Cash of Rs 47.5 lakh, forged summons, notices, duplicate official stamps were recovered during searches conducted at the house of Jeetendra Prasad,” the official said.
BRUSSELS — China’s attempt to style itself as a neutral peacemaker in the Ukraine war fell flat on Friday when NATO and the EU both slammed its playbook for ending the conflict one year after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Beijing is a key strategic ally of Russia, which it sees as a useful partner against the West and NATO. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Chinese companies are already supplying “non-lethal” aid to Russia, but added there are indications that China is weighing up sending arms — something Beijing denies.
Earlier on Friday, the Chinese foreign ministry published a 12-point, 892-word “position paper” with a view to settling what it calls the “Ukraine crisis,” without referring to it as a war.
“China’s position builds on a misplaced focus on the so-called ‘legitimate security interests and concerns’ of parties, implying a justification for Russia’s illegal invasion, and blurring the roles of the aggressor and the aggressed,” Nabila Massrali, the EU’s foreign policy spokeswoman, said in a press briefing.
“The position paper doesn’t take into account who is the aggressor and who is the victim of an illegal and unjustified war of aggression,” Massrali, said, calling the Chinese position paper “selective and insufficient about their implications for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said China’s stance was anything but neutral.
“It is not a peace plan but principles that they shared. You have to see them against a specific backdrop. And that is the backdrop that China has taken sides, by signing for example an unlimited friendship right before Russia’s invasion in Ukraine started,” she said at a press conference in Estonia. “So we will look at the principles, of course. But we will look at them against the backdrop that China has taken sides.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also joined officials in pouring cold water on Beijing.
“China doesn’t have much credibility,” he told reporters on Friday, responding to the latest official document. “They have not been able to condemn the illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg added that there have been “signs and indications that China may be planning and considering to supply military aid to Russia,” although NATO has not seen “any actual delivery of lethal aid.”
China has been hoping to improve ties with the Europeans, as it doubles down on efforts to discredit the U.S.
Assistant Foreign Minister Hua Chunying, for instance, accused the U.S. of benefiting from the war. Wang Lutong, the head of European affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, appealed directly to the European Union: “China is willing to make joint efforts with the EU and continue to play a constructive role on Ukraine,” Wang said in a tweet, adding a screenshot of the latest proposal.
More doubts
Merely five lines into China’s newly unveiled official plan on resolving the “Ukraine crisis” — released on Friday marking the first-year point of what Beijing studiously refuses to call a war — Russian propaganda appears.
“The security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs,” the Chinese foreign ministry position paper reads, supporting the Russian claim that war broke out in order to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO.
The next point in the Chinese plan: “All parties must … avoid fanning the flames and aggravating tensions.” Chinese diplomats have in recent weeks accused the U.S. of being the biggest arms supplier for Ukraine, while it faces mounting pressure not to provide Russia with weapons.
Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, called China’s position “hypocritical.”
“[China’s proposal] is very reminiscent of the hypocritical Soviet rhetoric of ‘fight for peace,’” said Merezhko. “It’s a set of declarative empty slogans; it’s not backed by specifics or an implementation mechanism.”
Paramedics carry an injured Ukrainian serviceman who stepped on an anti-personnel land mine | Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
Merezhko also asked Europe not to fall for China’s charm offensive as it seeks to split the transatlantic unity on assisting his country. “China, just like Russia, is trying to split the EU and the U.S. and to undermine transatlantic solidarity,” he told POLITICO in response to the Chinese proposal. “It’s very dangerous.”
Central and Eastern European countries, the most vocal supporters of arming Ukraine further, are equally dismissive of Beijing’s rhetoric.
“China’s plan is vague and does not offer solutions,” Ivana Karásková, who heads the China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe think tank based in Prague. “The plan calls on Russia and Ukraine to deal with the issue themselves, which would only benefit Russia; China continues to oppose what it calls unilateral sanctions and asks for the sanctions to be approved by the UN Security Council — well, given the fact that the aggressor is a permanent UNSC member with a veto right, this claim is beyond ridiculous.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Kolkata: Chandan Mondal aka Ranjan, the third middleman arrested in connection with the multi-crore teachers’ recruitment scam in West Bengal on Friday, has reportedly given to CBI sleuths a break-up of rates fixed for giving appointments as teachers of different grades in state-run schools.
Sources said that the rates varied between Rs 5,00,000 and went up to the level ranging from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 30 lakh. The lowest range for the payments started with the primary level and gradually progressed in the next three levels of upper primary, secondary and higher secondary.
Explaining the rationale for the different rates for different levels of teachers, a headmaster of a state-run school in West Bengal told IANS on condition of anonymity that since the scale-pay for these four levels are higher according to higher levels, naturally the under-the-table rates for appointments for different levels also vary.
“A primary teacher in a state-run school at the entry level gets somewhat between Rs 26,000 to Rs 27,000 a month, which goes to the bracket of Rs 33,000 to Rs 34,000 in the upper primary level, Rs 37,000 to Rs 38,000 in the secondary level and finally to Rs 42,000 to Rs 43,000 in the higher secondary level. This is the entry-level pay I am speaking of,” he said.
“Now in case of increment, there is a fixed annual increment of three per cent for all the four levels. But naturally the levels drawing high pay-scale will attract more in hand as incremental sum than the levels in lower pay-scales. This makes the higher secondary level naturally more attractive than the other three levels. Rest is up to your understanding and conclusion,” he added.
“Similarly, Mondal admitted that there are different rates for appointments as non-teaching staff in Group C and Group D categories. However, he has claimed ignorance about the rates prevailing in the non-teaching category since he used to deal mainly with illegal appointments in the teaching category,” a CBI source said.
Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the multi-crore teachers’ recruitment irregularities scam in West Bengal arrested another middleman — Chandan Mondal aka Ranjan — in connection with the scam on Friday.
Mondal is the third middleman who has been arrested by the CBI after it started probing the matter in 2022, the other two being Prasanna Kumar Roy and Pradeep Singh.
Roy is the husband of the niece of former West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, who is currently in judicial custody for his alleged involvement in the scam.
Sources said Mondal came to CBI’s Nizam Palace office in Kolkata on Friday after being summoned by the agency for questioning.
After hours of questioning, sources said, the CBI officials decided to take him into custody after he refused to cooperate in revealing information.
He was presented at a special CBI court in Kolkata on Friday afternoon, which remanded him to four-day CBI custody.
Mondal’s name surfaced for the first time when ex-state minister Upen Biswas, who is also a former joint director of the CBI, revealed his name through a video message posted on social media.
In his message, Biswas said that Mondal was responsible for offering several teaching and non-teaching jobs in state-run schools against payment of money.
Since then, Mondal was questioned by the CBI from time to time, but he was not taken into custody.
Meanwhile, after receiving the information of Mondal’s arrest, Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the Calcutta High Court, whose order prompted the CBI to launch its probe into the teachers’ recruitment scam, described it as a “very late step” by the CBI.
“What will happen with his arrest now? Nothing will happen. The investigation has been going on for the last seven to eight months. What result will his arrest now yield,” Justice Gangopadhyay asked.
