Rajnath to chair NEC meet in Shillong on July 9
Shillong, July 2: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will chair here from July 9 the 67th plenary of the North Eastern Council (NEC), a regional planning body of eight northeastern states, an official said on Monday.
Governors and Chief Ministers of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura -- who are also members of newly reconstituted NEC -- will attend.
On June 13, the Union Cabinet brought the NEC under the direct control of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Union Home Minister is the ex-officio chairperson of the council.
Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Minister Jitender Singh will be its Vice Chairman.
The first session of the NEC meeting will include tabling of an action-taken report on the 64th plenary and approval of the draft annual plan of NEC for 2018-19 by the council.
Other topics to be discussed include infrastructure and connectivity in the region, in which officials from ministries of road transport and highways, railways, water resources, civil aviation, power, tourism and human resource development will participate.
NEC officials said that the repositioning of the council will provide a forum for more comprehensive discussions on inter-state matters.
Under the new arrangement, the NEC will now also perform the tasks undertaken by various zonal councils pertaining to inter-state issues like drug trafficking, smuggling of arms and ammunition, and boundary disputes.
The NEC has been instrumental in setting in motion a new economic endeavour aimed at removing roadblocks to development of the northeastern region.
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BharatPe fraud case: Delhi HC quashes lookout circular against Ashneer Grover, wife
New Delhi, Nov 12: The Delhi High Court has ordered cancellation of a lookout circular (LOC) issued against Ashneer Grover, the former MD of payment app BharatPe, and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover, noting that the FIR lodged against them over allegations of cheating and forgery has already been quashed.
Justice Sanjeev Narula passed the order on Monday after the court was informed that another bench of the high court quashed the FIR on the same day.
The FIR was quashed by Justice Chandra Dhari Singh after considering a plea moved by the Grovers stating that they have arrived at a settlement with the fintech company.
In his order, Justice Narula said, "Although the copy of the order (quashing the FIR) is not available as of now, the aforenoted fact is not disputed by the counsel for the parties.
"In light of the fact that the underlying FIR has been quashed, the LOC issued by respondent No. 3 (Bureau of Immigration), in the opinion of the court, will not survive."
The LOC was issued by the Bureau of Immigration at the instance of Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in view of the investigation against the Grovers in the cheating and forgery FIR.
The court was hearing a plea moved by Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain Grover seeking quashing of the LOC issued against them in connection with the investigation into the cheating and forgery case.
"Accordingly, the present petitions are disposed of with a direction to the respondents to cancel the LOC against the petitioners in their records," the court noted.
Earlier, the Grovers claimed that they were informed about the LOC for the first time when they were detained at the Indira Gandhi International Airport here on November 16, 2023, while they were scheduled to travel to the US.
After being detained, they were informed that the LOC was operational from November 6, 2023.
In May last year, the EOW filed an FIR against Grover, his wife Madhuri, and others under eight sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 and 468 (forgery), and 471 (using forged documents as genuine) for an alleged Rs 81 crore fraud after a complaint was lodged by BhartPe, the fintech unicorn.
In its complaint, BharatPe alleged that Grover and his family caused damages to the tune of Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input tax credit and payment of penalty to GST authorities, illegal payment to travel agencies, forged invoices by Madhuri, and destruction of evidence.
Madhuri was the head of controls at BharatPe before she was fired in 2022 after a forensic audit revealed several irregularities.
Subsequently, Grover resigned as the chief executive officer of the fintech firm in March 2022.
