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15THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHIFRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2017 TIMES NATION | Politics & Policy
Hyderabad: Telangana chiefminister K ChandrasekharRao extended several statebenefits for Muslims andvowed to move the SupremeCourt if the Centre did not en-dorse its decision to provide12% quota for them in govern-ment jobs and educational in-stitutions here on Thursday.
Replying to a short discus-sion on ‘minority welfare’ inthe assembly on Thursday,CSR announced several mea-sures for Muslims, including4% reservation in all stategovernment welfare schemessuch as housing schemes,three acre land distribution,and other schemes on parwith what is granted toScheduled Castes (SC) andScheduled Tribes (ST).
Stating that Urdu has itsorigins in Hyderabad, the CMannounced that it would bethe second official language ofTelangana, and that all com-petitive examinations in thestate would henceforth beheld in Urdu as well. However,it was clear that KCR’s focuswas on ensuring 12% quota forMuslims and other religiousminorities in all governmentjobs and education. Inciden-
tally, Muslims are 12.86% ofthe state’s population.
KCR said, “I have ap-pealed to PM to incorporate12% reservations for minori-ties in the IX Schedule of theConstitution to overcome le-gal hurdles (the SC has im-posed a 50% ceiling on reser-vations) on the lines of TamilNadu, which has been provid-ing 69% reservations.
“I am optimistic that theCentre will consider our re-quest. If it rejects it, then wewill not hesitate to move theSupreme Court and get noticesissued to the Centre. If needed,an all-party delegation wouldbe taken to New Delhi to meetthe Prime Minister on the is-sue,” the CM said.
TRS had included provi-sion of 12% quota for minori-ties in its election manifesto.And after assuming office,the Telangana assembly, inwhich TRS has a majority,passed a resolution enhanc-
ing the quota by 12% for mi-norities and 10% for STs ingovernment jobs and educa-tion, and sent the Bill to theCentre for ratification.
However, the Centre is yetto clear it. The CM said if therewas no response from the Cen-tre to his latest missive, TRSMPs will raise the issue in Par-liament. “If the quota issue isnot settled soon, the TRS is sureto make it an election issue inthe 2019,” a party source said.
Making 16 major announ-cements including declaringUrdu the second official lan-guage of the state, KCR saidhis government would recruit900 Urdu teachers through thedistrict selection committee.
The chief minister saidsince there is a requirement ofpeople who know Urdu, 66posts, including officers andtranslators, have been sanc-tioned. The recruitment willbe completed by the Urdu A-cademy in 60 days, he said.
Seeks PM’s Help To Overcome 50% Ceiling
KCR pledges 12% quota forMuslims in jobs, admissions
He termed the meeting“satisfactory”, sayingthat Congress had
shown “political will” to doleout quota to Patidars. “Wewill discuss options withPAAS convener Hardik Patel,other leaders and legal lu-minaries from our communi-ty. Then we will have a meet-ing with Congress,” Bambha-nia said. Hardik was, howev-er, conspicuous by hisabsence at the meeting held atthe GPCC headquarters here.
Bambhania said the op-tions didn’t touch the existing49% quota for OBCs, SCs andSTs in the state. “The optionsare over and above the existing49% quota. We have rejectedthe Congress offer under EBC
because it is not constitution-ally valid. The party promisedto give us quota similar to theones in Tamil Nadu, Karnata-ka and Rajasthan,” he said.
Sibal, however, said themeeting was to understandeach other’s views and optionswould be discussed later. “Themeeting brought hope thatsomething can be worked out.
We have discussed all aspectsand will do everything to pro-vide reservation to the Patidarcommunity as per the Consti-tution. We will meet again innext two-three days to take theissue forward,” Sibal said.
The Congress delegationcomprised Kapil Sibal, AICCGujarat in-charge Ashok Geh-lot, Gujarat Congress chiefBharatsinh Solanki, seniorleaders Shaktisinh Gohil,Siddharth Patel, Arjun Modh-wadia, while there were 10-12PAAS leader at the meeting.
Earlier, Hardik had saidthat he would support Con-gress if it agreed to give reser-vation in education and gov-ernment jobs to his commu-nity. He had set November 7 asthe deadline for Congress tomake its stand clear.
Cong promised to breachquota cap like TN: Patidars
TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Jaipur: It’s back to square onefor the Gujjars who, for morethan a decade, have been de-manding increased quota ingovernment jobs and educa-tion institutions. The Rajas-than high court on Thursdayrestrained the state govern-ment from acting further onthe Rajasthan BackwardClasses Bill 2017 passed by theassembly last month to raiseOBC quota from 21% to 26%.
The government was yetto notify the bill, which is ti-tled ‘Rajasthan BackwardClasses (Reservation of seatsin Educational Institutionsin the state and of appoint-ments and posts in servicesunder the state) Bill, 2017’.With the court’s interim or-der on Thursday, only the pro-posed increase in the OBCquota has been stayed.
The 5% increase in OBCquota was to be granted to Guj-jars and four other communi-ties after creating a “MoreBackward Classes (MBC)”subcategory within the OBCcategory. As was expected,this time too the high courthas stayed the quota bill as itwould have taken overall res-ervation in the state to 54%, inbreach of the 50% ceiling putby the Supreme Court.
The high court had earlierstayed the quota Acts of 2008and 2015 on the same ground.In fact, the Act of 2015 was fi-nally quashed by the highcourt in 2016, following whichthe government appealed be-fore the Supreme Court. Theapex court, however, orderedstatus quo and the Act of 2015remains quashed till date.
On Thursday, the order onOBC quota bill has been passedby a division bench of Justice KS Jhaveri and Justice V K Vyason a PIL moved by one GangaSahay Sharma, who expressedapprehension that the govern-ment may notify the bill anytime now and overall reserva-tion in the state may againshoot to 54%.
The Gujjar leaders haveexpressed disappointmentover the development.
Raj HC staysOBC quota billfor breachingSC’s ceiling
TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Thiruvananthapuram:The judicial probe reporthas exposed a bunch of liestold by former chief minis-ter Oommen Chandy aboutthe solar scam including theone that he didn’t have anyacquaintance with SarithaNair. The commission findsthat Saritha and Biju Rad-hakrishnan had paid Rs. 2.16crore as bribe to Chandy inseveral instalments throughhis trusted lieutenants.
It also makes damagingrevelation that Chandy wasaware of Saritha’s criminalpast. Saritha had met Chan-dy thrice and the commis-sion could prove this beforeChandy during his cross ex-amination.
Chandy had told the com-mission that he came to knowabout Saritha only after herarrest but the statementsfrom Biju Radhakrishnanand Tenny Jopan have madeit clear that Saritha S Nairhad met Chandy at his office.
It was Tenny Jopan who tookthe initiative to arrange themeeting. Even Thomas Ku-ruvila, a close aide of Chan-dy, had connection with Sa-ritha and she had handedover Rs 40 lakh to him to begiven to Chandy.
The report further saysthat Chandy had introducedSaritha to power ministerAryadan Mohammed for ob-taining favours. The evidencefor this could be found in theCDs of annual function of theKSEB engineers’ association
held at Kodimatha. Powerminister Aryadan Mo-hammed while inauguratingthe function, in which SarithaS Nair was also on stage, isseen looking at her and statingthat the CM had sent them inconnection with their projects.
“This part of the CD wasplayed to Oomnen Chandywhen he was examined. Headmitted that Aryadan Mo-hammed has made the state-ment as per the speech in theCD,” the report said.
Justice Sivarajan hasfound that there is sub-stance in the allegation thatOommen Chandy, his office,personal staff membersTenny Joppen amd Jikku-mon Jacob, gunman SalimRaj, close party workersBenny Behanan, Thampa-noor Ravi and Thomas Ku-ruvilla, his aide in Delhi,are all party to the solarscam deals of the prime ac-cused Saritha S Nair and Bi-ju Radhakrishnan in oneway or the other, the com-mission found.
Probe exposes Chandy’slies about solar scam
The bribe to Chandy waspaid in several instal-ments through his trust-
ed lieutenants, the panelclaimed. It also found sub-stance in allegations of bribetaking against former minis-ter Arayadan Mohammed, hiscabinet colleague AP Anilku-mar and former Union MoS SS Palanimanickam. The com-mission recommended vigi-lance probe against all theseleaders. The special investiga-tion team headed by DGP Ra-jesh Dewan will examinethese allegations and decidewhich of them merits an FIR.
However, the commissionwas silent on two key pointswhich it was supposed toprobe. It skirts the issue ofany possible loss to the stateexchequer as a result of thesolar scam. It is also not clearon whether the then UDF gov-ernment did anything to helpTeam Solar — the companyfounded by Biju Radhakrish-nan and Saritha — make un-due gains.Incidentally, the ac-tion taken report (ATR) along
with the government orderconstituting a special investi-gation team tabled by Vijayanin the assembly, stopped shortof directly naming Chandyand his cabinet colleagues. OnOctober 11, Vijayan had an-nounced that cases will be reg-istered against all the accusedin the probe report.
The solar report, whichcontains explicit details ofsexual harassment by severaltop politicians, prompted
CPM and BJP to demand thenamed UDF leaders to quitpolitics. “The sexual allega-tions against me are the mostunfortunate allegations Ihave ever faced in my life. Thepeople of Kerala know mewell since I have been in pub-lic life for the last 50 years. Ifany of the allegations areproved then I will quit mypublic life,” Chandy told themedia. “The high court hadonce made it clear that Sa-ritha Nair against whomthere are 31 criminal caseshas no credibility,” he said.
The solar commission re-port also names several policeofficials who allegedly triedto save Chandy from criminalresponsibility in the solarscam. The UDF stood unitedin its hour of need and said itwould deal with the case polit-ically and legally. Chandysaid the letter quoted by com-mission was forged as theoriginal letter written by Sa-ritha, attested by prison offi-cials, had only 21 pages whilethe commission’s letter, pre-sented by a news channel re-porter, has 25 pages.
‘Bribe to ex-CM was paidin several instalments’
New Delhi: The SupremeCourt, after perusing CBI’sconfidential probe report onKarti Chidambaram, said onThursday that he could be al-lowed to go abroad for a fewdays and sought a responsefrom the agency which said itapprehends that he might tryto tamper with evidence andnot return.
Appearing before a bench ofChief Justice Dipak Misra andJustices A M Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, additional so-licitor general Tushar Mehtaplaced CBI’s report in a sealedenvelope containing evidencecollected against Karti. The ASGtold the court that Karti had tam-pered with evidence and closedaccounts in foreign banks whenhe went abroad in June-July. Thecourt, however, asked why Kartiis not being interrogated by CBIon the basis of new evidence ithas collected and asked Mehtahow long the agency will take tocomplete the probe.
“This is the beginning andnot the end. CBI cannot disclosethe line of its investigation andthe evidence collected by it atthis stage. There is unusual ve-hemence on his part to goabroad. What happened in Juneand July and his eagerness to goabroad again does not inspireconfidence,” Mehta said.
SC seeks CBIresponse on
allowing Kartito go abroad
New Delhi: The SupremeCourt on Thursday agreed tohear a plea for quashing of ap-pointment of Gujarat-cadreIPS officer Rakesh Asthana asCBI special director and post-ed the case for November 13.
Appearing before a benchof Justices J Chelameswarand S Abdul Nazeer, advocatePrashant Bhushan pleadedfor an early hearing whichwas accepted by the court.
Asthana, a 1984 batch IPSofficer, has become the secondin command in the centralagency after CBI DirectorAlok Verma. He had headedthe Special InvestigationTeam that probed the burningof Sabarmati Express in God-hra in February 2002 and wasassociated with the probe intofodder scam in Bihar. TNN
SC to hear pleaagainst Asthana
appointment �Continued from P 1
Hardik Patel was conspicuous byhis absence at the meeting
Making 16 major announcements,including declaring Urdu the second official language, KCR said his government would recruit900 Urdu teachers
Former Kerala chief ministerOommen Chandy during a pressmeet at Ernakulam Guest house
�Continued from P 1
Kerala solar scam accusedSaritha S Nair said on
Thursday that Congressleader Ramesh Chennithalawanted to use her against hisparty colleague and formerchief minister OommenChandy. She told reportersthat Chennithala wantedevidence against Chandy berevealed to the media beforethe AICC finalised the list ofcandidates for the 2016assembly election. TNN
Cong leader triedto use me againstChandy: Saritha
