A Lok Sabha candidate from Nashik in Maharashtra left officials speechless when he paid his security deposit of Rs. 12,500 in one, two, five and 10 rupee coins.

Pramod Natekar, who heads the small Bahujan Swarajya Mahasangh party, deposited the money, weighing a few kilograms, in plastic bags in Nashik.

There were 2,500 coins of Re. 1 (Rs 2,500); 2,500 coins of Rs. 2 (Rs 5,000); 908 coins of Rs. 5 (Rs 4,540) and 46 coins of Rs. 10 (Rs 460) – totalling Rs. 12,500.

Candidates have to pay Rs. 25,000 as security deposit while filing nominations. The amount is 50 percent for those fighting in seats reserved for Dalits and tribals.

It took the Election Commission (EC) officials three hours to count the deposit money.

“There is no rule which says that small change can’t be given as security deposit,” an aide to Natekar said.

The deposit money is forfeited if the candidate does not get a minimum number of votes.

Natekar is a street vendor, selling odd items, and the security money was collected from other vendors and pavement dwellers, his aide said.

In the process, a couple of other candidates were forced to wait for a long time to file their nominations — because officials took a long time counting the mountain of coins.

Aeronautical tariffs, including landing and parking charges and user development fees (UDF) charged from passengers, for Delhi and Mumbai airports would remain unchanged for another two months.

According to official sources, the tariff for these two major airports was fixed till March 31 this year but airport operators — DIAL and MIAL — have sought more time for fixing these charges.

Besides UDF and landing, parking charges, the tariff include charges for housing and parking of aircraft, ground handling and ground safety services, supply of fuel, navigation, surveillance and supportive communication for the airplanes.

In its latest orders for the two airports, the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) said the rates of aeronautical charges would continue at the same levels for two months till May 31 or till further orders.

Normally, the control period for tariffs fixed by AERA is five years.

While Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) had sought a six-month extension for prevailing tariff rates since the fixation of new charges for the second control period would take some time, GVK-led Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) had wanted the same rates to continue till the new rates are fixed, the sources said.

Late last year, GMR-led DIAL had urged AERA to put on hold tariff determination, citing unresolved financial issues including rate of return on equity and calculation of asset base.

However, the Civil Aviation Ministry wanted reduction in the Delhi airport tariff rates at least by half for the next five years, which DIAL had appealed against.

Earlier while determining the tariff structure, AERA had allowed Delhi airport to hike aeronautical charges by 346 per cent from May 2012, lower than its demand for a 775 per cent hike.

But this was opposed by many airlines as well as the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which said these high charges have made Delhi airport the most expensive in the world, badly hurting fliers and airlines.

Last year, government auditor CAG and the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Transport, Tourism and Culture had slammed the Civil Aviation Ministry on various issues, including high airport charges and for giving away Delhi airport and its land to GMR-led DIAL at a cheap price.

Descendants of political families, actors, professionals, and a former chief minister are in fray for election to 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.
The state, which accounts for the second highest number of Lok Sabha constituencies after Uttar Pradesh, goes to polls in three phases starting from April 10.
In the first phase of election for ten constituencies from Vidarbha, there are 201 candidates in fray while in the second phase on April 17, 19 constituencies in Marathwada and western Maharashtra will see 358 candidates.
The 19 seats of Mumbai, Thane, North Maharashtra, Raigad, Aurangabad and Jalna will go to polls in the third phase. As many as 495 candidates have filed their nominations and the last date of withdrawal is April 9.
Among the generation next of political families, Supriya Sule, daughter of NCP chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, is seeking a second term from the family seat Baramati.
In 2009, she had won by a margin of over three lakh votes. Union Minister of State for Telecom Milind Deora, son of senior Congress leader Murli Deora, is seeking a third term from the prestigious Mumbai South seat.
Priya Dutt, the daughter of actor-politician late Sunil Dutt, is in fray from Mumbai North Central as Congress nominee. She is pitted against Poonam Mahajan, daughter of BJP leader late Pramod Mahajan.
Besides, Vishwajit Kadam, son of Congress veteran Patangrao Kadam and state youth party chief, is the candidate from Pune, while Indian Youth Congress president Rajiv Satav is in fray from Hingoli.
Not just sons and daughters, but some daughters-in-law are also making their debut this time. In Raver, opposition leader Eknath Khadse’s daughter-in-law Raksha is the BJP candidate against Manish Jain of NCP, the son of NCP Rajya Sabha member Ishwarlal Jain.
In Dindori, NCP legislator A T Pawar’s daughter-in-law Bharati, a medical practitioner, is making electoral debut.

The legacy of actor-politician late Sunil Dutt ‘inherited’ by his daughter Priya Dutt, sitting MP and Congress nominee from Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha seat, is likely to be under threat with BJP candidate Poonam Mahajan and SP’s Farhan Azmi also in fray.

For the first time, the Dutt legacy is set to face stiff competition from Poonam Mahajan, BJP candidate and daughter of late Pramod Mahajan, besides Samajwadi Party’s Farhan Azmi aiming to grab a large chunk of four lakh Muslim and 2.5 lakh North Indian votes in the constituency, political observers said.

More than Congress, it was Sunil Dutt who held sway in the constituency for several years ever since he strode into political waters in 1984. While BJP had no cadre as Dutt’s victory was a forgone conclusion, they said.

“All the MLAs and corporators would be loyal to Sunil Dutt and there was a time when along with Dutt, all six Assembly segments would have Congress MLAs and also sizable corporators,” observers pointed out. But, according to them, the situation had changed now.

“The anti-incumbency factor is massive. Priya Dutt has no local support of MLAs. Kurla MLA Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan and Kalina MLA Kripashankar Singh were conspicuous by their absence when Priya filed her nominations.
Apart from Bandra west MLA Baba Siddique and Vile Parle legislator Krishna Hegde, Priya has no support from the local Congress cadre,” sources said. Whereas, BJP has fielded Poonam Mahajan, who has been active in politics for quite some time.

According to a BJP office-bearer from the constituency, “In 2009, the BJP morale was low. Lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani was new to politics. But, Poonam is a good choice. There is support for Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate and the local cadre is active,” he said. BJP sources said Poonam belonged to the anti-Vinod Tawde camp.

A special money laundering court has attached assets worth Rs 75 lakh of a conman who cheated film maker Rakesh Roshan in 2011 and several others posing as a senior CBI officer.

The court acted on a complaint of the Mumbai office of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which registered a money laundering case against Ashwani Kumar Sharma and his wife Meenakshi Mansotra taking cognisance of numerous CBI FIRs against him for duping gullible people who wanted to secretly settle their serious cases of penalty and customs duties.

A comfy flat in Sector-20A of Navi Mumbai worth Rs 26.25 lakh and two plots in Sushant city area of Haryana’s Panipat district valued at Rs 15.75 lakh and Rs 31.50 lakh respectively had been attached by the ED last year under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The case dates back to 2011 as the agencies got on hot pursuit of Sharma and his associate Rajesh Ranjan after Roshan complained to the CBI that the duo has “threatened” him that they, posing as CBI officers, would issue arrest warrants against him, his actor son Hrithik and other family members in a payments case related to their home production Hindi flick ‘Kites’.

The conmen, who had cheated numerous people by this time flaunting their fake status as CBI officers, also extracted Rs 50 lakh from Roshan on the pretext of helping him get closed a civil complaint case against the Roshans.

The Adjudicating Authority of the PMLA, in two latest and separate orders, attached the assets in the name of Sharma as “proceeds of crime” earned by creating illegal assets by cheating a number of people who were scared of their status of being CBI authorities.

The Authority is a judicial body to decide on cases of enforcement action.

The ED probe found that the assets created by Sharma were “done with the sole intention of money laundering by projecting the tainted money derived out of scheduled offence as untainted in the form of genuine investment.”

The case had made headlines three years back as a number of people who were under the scanner of agencies like DRI and the Income Tax department got in touch with the conmen, taking them to be CBI officers, for bailing them out of legal action by these agencies.

Relying on circumstantial evidence, the Bombay High Court has upheld the life sentence awarded to a 26-year-old man for killing his pregnant wife. Laxman Dhotre was sentenced to life imprisonment by Nanded sessions court on the charges of killing his wife, Chanda, who was carrying his child. He was also awarded seven years’ jail term for killing the unborn child.

The division bench of Justices K U Chandiwal and V M Deshpande dismissed his appeal last week.

Dhotre worked at Umri Bazaar village in Nanded. After the marriage, he and his wife shifted to Hyderabad in 2009.

According to the prosecution, he was an alcoholic, and often quarrelled with his wife. After Chanda became pregnant, the couple returned to Nanded. However, Dhotre, when drunk, beat his wife sometimes despite her condition. On January 10, 2010, Chanda was found dead in the house. There were injuries on her body.
Dhotre was arrested and put on trial. His lawyers argued that he had gone to Hyderabad when Chanda died. But the High Court noted that no evidence was produced in this regard.

Public prosecutor G K Naik-Thigale pointed out that a witness had seen Laxman passing down a road in Umri Bazaar on the night of Chanda’s death.

His lawyer, Advocate D Y Nandedkar, also argued that the trial was vitiated because the charges had not been framed properly. But the High Court said this too was never proved, and even if some defect in framing was assumed, it was not proved how it caused any prejudice to the accused.

Court also pointed out that liquor bottles were recovered from the house “from which we can safely draw an inference that the appellant must have consumed the liquor”.

Moreover, the court said that although what happened on that night could be known only to Dhotre, the victim, being his wife was in his “custody”. As per the Evidence Act, he was required to “give plausible explanation in respect of the injuries found on her body”. No such explanation was given, the HC noted, upholding the sentence.

The district police have foiled a robbery bid by arresting a gang of six persons in Vasai.

All members were arrested from Hetkarwadi last night and a pistol, three bullets, a hammer and a chisel were seized from them, they said.

“The gang of armed dacoits mainly operated in and around the district,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police (Vasai division) Srinivas Ghatge.

All members of the gang are Nepalese and working as watchmen at various places in the district.

The kingpin of the gang has a number of cases registered against him in various police stations in Thane city and other parts of the district.

The accused are identified as Dinesh Thakur, Suraj Ganeshbhai Thapa, Padam Lal Bahadur Thapa, Kamalsing Bhatya Nepali, Vijaysingh Paramsingh Thapa and Jordalai Balaram, police said.