The Gujarat H C has directed to arrest all the 33 accused-

Source:Anupam Chakravartty : indianexpress.:1 April,2010

Vadodara : The Gujarat High Court has directed the CID (Economic Offences) to arrest all the 33 accused beneficiaries in the Rs 70-crore scam in the Karamsad Cooperative Bank at Vallabh Vidyanagar by the end of next month. The court of Justice M R Shah dismissed CID’s plea to extend the investigation for another two months and asked the action taken report to be tabled by April 30.

After a seven-year long wait, the CID (Economic offences) took over the investigation from Vidyanagar police station and arrested nine people in the case, including five of the bank’s directors. Among them were former state minister Dilip Patel and former BJP MP Natu Patel. “Around 33 loan-takers are yet to be arrested as many of them have left the country,” said Deputy Superintendent of Police B J Jadeja.

However, Hitesh Patel, who had reportedly filed an RTI application seeking details of borrowers and guarantors, says that if borrowers are booked for misappropriation of Rs 70 crore from the bank, then the guarantors have to be nabbed. The RTI  reply shows that the arrests could go well beyond 240.

Meanwhile, in a February 26 ruling in the same case, Justice Shah had directed the CID to investigate the reasons for the bank’s liquidation. “But a more detailed investigation is required to find out why the Karamsad Urban Cooperative Bank Limited has gone into liquidation,” Shah said while passing an oral order.

According to the CID (Economic Offences), policemen from Anand and Ahmedabad, who investigated the issue in a span of six months found that the trustees involved their own relatives. “They gave loans to various parties, who had produced forged documents,” said a CID officer.

A report made by the Anand Economic Offences Detection Cell says that the bank gave loans violating guidelines laid down by the Reserve Bank of India. “The Bank also invested Rs 9 crore in Home Trade, which was against the directives of the Reserve Bank of India. The bank also extended loans to Keval Land Developers and Ghanshyam Patel on the basis of bogus documents,” wrote Inspector B J Pathan in the report made to the Gujarat High Court when the issue had come to the light.

Further, four persons, including a managing director of a farm implement manufacturing company based in Palanpur of Sabarkantha district, and his brother, were reportedly booked by the CID for producing fake bills for farm implements that were never bought, but approved by the bank trustees.

Meet brings together 250 RTI users from across Gujarat

Source:Caroline Andrade / DNA
Thursday, March 18, 2010 10:18 IST


Ahmedabad: The RTI is perhaps the most useful weapon

that the common man can yield against any authority. A state-level three hour

long RTI convention organised on Wednesday and attended by

around 250 RTI users from Gujarat, saw participants discuss how

they used the Right to Information Act to expose loopholes and

inefficiency of the system.



The  convention was held in Paldi. Arvind Kejriwal of Parivartan India,
Harinesh Pandya, secretary of Janpath and founder of Mahiti Adhikar,
Gujarat Pahel and Prof Jagdeep Chhokar, Association for Domestic
Reforms ADR, were also present at the event.

Deepak Patel of Gujarat state primary teachers' association said that he
used RTI to seek details about teachers in all schools of Gujarat.

"But I was given details of only 600 schools. I then identified the non-qualified
teachers in these schools and also found that the district education officers
were not carrying out proper inspection in schools," said Patel.

Patel then filed a complaint with the information commissioner, RN Das
which in turn sent a notice to the state government. "The government clearly
stated that it was the duty of the DEO to carry out inspections. In response,
the DEO said that they were short-staffed. The RTI application also brought
to fore the fact that some reports were prepared by the DEO without any
official actually carrying out the inspection," said Patel.

Vinod Pandya of Gujarat state Talimi Snatak also came across many
loopholes in the education system after he filed an RTI application
seeking information about private primary schools and non qualified
teachers."I asked for a full data for Ahmedabad district and city schools
and in the process got to know that 70% teachers were non-qualified
. I also learned that in 95% of the cases, the teachers were not being
paid proper salary and even their provident funds were not in order,"
said Pandya.

Pandya later filed a PIL in the high court and the government promised
to sack non qualified teachers. "However, even after 2 years nothing
has happened," said Pandya.

Girish Vishrambhai Dodia of Surat, son of a slain RTI activist
, Vishrambhai Dodia said his father lost his life due to a fight
between an electricity company and the police department.
"He had filed an RTI petition seeking inquiry against illegal
electricity connection that involved a whole lot of influential
people of the city," said Dodia.