Court issues NBW against Ram Gopal Varma in cheque bounce case
Mumbai (PTI): A sessions court here has issued a non-bailable warrant against filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma after rejecting his plea for suspension of jail sentence in a cheque bounce case.
Earlier, on January 21, Judicial Magistrate (First Class) in Andheri, Y P Pujari, convicted Varma for the offence punishable under provisions of the Negotiable Instruments Act. The magistrate had sentenced the filmmaker to three-month jail term and directed him to pay Rs 3,72,219 to the complainant within three months.
The filmmaker subsequently filed an appeal before the sessions court, seeking suspension of the sentence. Additional Sessions Judge A A Kulkarni, however, rejected his plea on March 4 and issued NBW against the filmmaker as he did not appear before the court and rejected his plea for suspension of the jail sentence. he matter has been adjourned to July 28 for execution of the warrant. The judge said the accused is at the liberty to file for bail after appearing before the court.
A company in 2018 lodged a cheque bounce complaint against Varma's firm.
Advocates Rajesh Kumar Patel, appearing for the complainant's company, had filed an affidavit before the magistrate court that the company was engaged in the business of providing hard disks for the last several years. As per the request of the accused, it had provided hard disks between February 2018 and March 2018, based on which various tax invoices amounting to Rs 2,38,220 were raised, the affidavit said.
The accused issued a cheque on June 1, 2018 to the complainant, which was dishonoured for insufficient funds, it said. After this fact was brought to the notice of Varma's firm, a second cheque of the same amount was issued, which too was dishonoured due to "payment stopped by drawer". The complainant was left with no option to avail legal remedy, the affidavit had added.
Varma is known for making films like "Satya", "Rangeela", "Company" and "Sarkar", among others.
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Ex-bureaucrat Raj Kumar Goyal sworn in as CIC; eight new information commissioners take oath
New Delhi (PTI): After a gap of nine years, transparency watchdog Central Information Commission attained its full strength with the appointment of former IAS officer Raj Kumar Goyal and eight other information commissioners, who took the oath of office on Monday.
A three-member panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week recommended their names for the appointment.
President Droupadi Murmu administered the oath of office to Goyal as the chief information commissioner (CIC) at a ceremony held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, her office said in a communique.
The event was attended by Vice President C P Radhakrishnan and Union Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh, among others.
Goyal is a 1990-batch (retired) IAS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. He superannuated as secretary, Department of Justice under the Ministry of Law and Justice, on August 31.
He has also served as secretary (border management) in the Home Ministry and held key posts both at the Centre and in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The post of CIC fell vacant after Heeralal Samariya completed his term on September 13.
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The Commission is headed by a CIC and can have a maximum of 10 information commissioners. With the new appointments, the Commission attained its full strength after a gap of over nine years, according to transparency activists.
In the presence of two incumbent Information Commissioners, Anandi Ramalingam and Vinod Kumar Tiwari, Goyal administered the oath of office to eight new appointees at the swearing-in ceremony.
They included former Railway Board chief Jaya Verma Sinha, former IPS officer Swagat Das -- who held key posts in the Intelligence Bureau, Home Ministry and Cabinet Secretariat, among others -- Central Secretariat Service (CSS) officer Sanjeev Kumar Jindal, former IAS officer Surendra Singh Meena and ex-Indian Forest Service officer Khushwant Singh Sethi.
Senior journalists P R Ramesh and Ashutosh Chaturvedi, and former Indian Legal Service officer Sudha Rani Relangi, have also been sworn in as information commissioners.
Relangi has also worked as the director of prosecution, Central Bureau of Investigation and joint secretary and legislative counsel in the Ministry of Law and Justice.
The names of the CIC and eight information commissioners were cleared during the meeting of the Modi-led committee comprising Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.
