tiruchy l saturday l may 18, 2024 l `9.00 l PAGES 12 l late city EDITION Relief for Spicejet over refund to Sun group’s Kalanithi Maran Delhi HC on Friday set aside a single bench order that upheld an arbitral award asking SpiceJet to refund `270 cr to its ex-promoter Dispute dates back to January 2015 Tribunal had set 18% interest to be paid The dispute between Maran and SpiceJet dates back to January 2015 when Ajay Singh, who used to own SpiceJet before Maran, bought it back from him. Maran reportedly transferred his 58.46% stake to Singh in return for redeemable warrants, which were allegedly not issued to him. Maran then approached Delhi HC for payout, which referred the matter to arbitration ■ The arbitral tribunal gave its order in July 2018 and ordered SpiceJet to refund `270 crore to Maran. The tribunal also asked the airline to pay interest of 12% per annum on the amounts paid towards warrants and 18% per annum on the sums awarded to Maran if the money is not paid on time ■ SpiceJet then moved the Delhi HC to challenge the arbitral order 5.46% Spicejet stock closed at `63 a share on bse on Friday, up from Thursday’s `59.74 CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOgGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI Sonia hands Rae Bareli fight to son P r e e t h a N a i r @ New Delhi Congress leader Rahul Gandhi greets his mother Sonia Gandhi during a public meeting in Rae Bareli on Friday, as his sister Priyanka looks on | PTI Striking an emotional chord with the voters in Rae Bareli, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said on Friday that she is handing over her son to the people of Rae Bareli with the promise that her son won’t disappoint them. Addressing a joint election rally at the meeting at ITI ground in Rae Bareli, the former Congress chief asked the people to consider her son as their own. “Rahul will not disappoint you,” said Sonia, flanked by her son Rahul and daughter Priyanka on the stage. “Everything I have is given by you. So, brothers and ED names Kejriwal, AAP in supplementary chargesheet Eighth chargesheet in the case linked to the excise policy scam so far U J W AL JALAL I @ New Delhi The Enforcement Directorate on Friday filed a supplementary chargesheet in the money laundering case linked to the Delhi excise policy scam in which it named Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party as accused. The chargesheet was filed before a special court here under various provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Special Judge Kaveri Baweja is likely to take it up for cognisance in the coming days. This is the eighth chargesheet filed by the probe agency in the case in which it has arrested 18 people so far. Last week, a similar complaint was filed by the ED against BRS leader and former Telangana chief minister Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha and four others. On Tuesday, the ED had informed the Delhi High Court that it will name the AAP as an accused in the case. ED’s lawyer had said there were concerted efforts by the accused to delay the process of framing of charges in the case. Even before the Supreme Court, the ED had said it was contemplating to make AAP an accused and invoke Section 70 of the PMLA to probe the aspect of “vicarious liability”. Last month, the Delhi High Court had suggested while hearing the case that a political par- SC seeks EC’s response on booth-wise turnout S u c h it r a K a lya n M o h a nty @ New Delhi The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Election Commission of India’s response on a plea seeking directions to the poll body to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of polling for each phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls. It gave the poll body a week to file its affidavit. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the petitioner, had sought the uploading of scanned copies of Form 17-C (record of the number of votes polled in a booth). A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra asked ECI counsel Amit Sharma what was the difficulty in putting up the voter turnout details on the website. Sharma replied that it was time consuming. “But every polling officer submits data on the app by evening? So returning officer has data of full constituency by the end of the day the bench asked Sharma. He replied, “No, ,” not immediately .” In the morning, the ADR moved the application as part of its plea to tally Voter-Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with votes cast through Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Rajesh Das Harassment case: SC stays arrest of ex-DGP S u c h it r a K a lya n M o h a nty @ New Delhi In a relief for former special Director General of Police (DGP) Rajesh Das, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered an interim stay of his arrest and exempted him from surrendering before a trial court in a sexual harassment case. A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal passed the order on a petition filed by the IPS officer who claimed that the Madras High Court had erred in not going through the records and other testimonials while rejecting his petition against the trial court order. In June 2023, a trial court in Villupuram convicted Das on the charge of sexually harassing a woman IPS officer and sentenced him to undergo three years of rigorous imprisonment. In December 2023, a month before his superannuation, he was given compulsory retirement from service by the Tamil Nadu government. P5 ty could be brought within the purview of the PMLA. It said a political party means “an association” or “a body of individuals”, which falls within the ambit of Section 70 of the PMLA. Subsequently, the ED had likened the AAP to a company and Kejriwal its director. The federal agency had arrested Kejriwal, 55, also the AAP’s national convenor, from his official residence here on March 21. He is currently out of jail on interim bail. The ED had labeled Kejriwal as “kingpin and key conspirator” of the Delhi excise scam. It alleged that he acted in collusion with his ministerial colleagues and other persons. The case pertains to alleged corruption in the Delhi government’s excise policy for 2021-22, which was later scrapped. sisters, I am giving you my son. Consider him yours,” she said. Sonia said she has taugh her children the values that her mother-in-law and former PM late Indira Gandhi and the Rae Bareli had taught her: To respect all, protect the weak, fight against injustice for the rights of people. “Don’t be afraid, because your roots of struggle and traditions are very Amethi pitch Rahul Gandhi said if he wins, he would treat Amethi and Rae Bareli equally on development. “If `10 is spent in Rae Bareli it would be the same for Amethi too,” he said deep,” she added. Sonia said the Gandhi family roots are deeply connected to Rae Bareli. “This relationship as sacred as Mother Ganga is with the farmers of Awadh and Rae Bareli. It started with a movement and continues till today she said. ,” Sonia said Indira Gandhi, who was an MP from Rae Bareli, had a special place for the constituency in her heart. “I saw her closely while working. She had immense affection for you,” she said. Sonia was first elected as an MP from Rae Bareli in 2004 and represented the seat till she vacated it early this after getting elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha. Clash of surprise in Mumbai North Central S U D H I R S U R YA W A N S H I @ Mumbai MUMBAI North Central Lok Sabha constituency, home to several celebrities and spread across many posh areas including Bandra and Vile Parle, is witnessing a close contest between renowned lawyer Ujjwal Nikam of the BJP and Mumbai Congress president Varsha Gaikwad. Interestingly, neither Nikam nor Gaikwad was the first choice of their respective parties. The BJP denied ticket to sitting MP Poonam Mahajan and wanted to field its Mumbai city president Ashish Shelar, who declined to contest saying he is not ready to enter national politics. Then Nikam w a s p i c ke d a t t h e l a s t moment. As for the Congress, it was considering former Maharashtra minister Naseem Khan, who was very keen to contest from the constituency. That Mumbai North Central has around 4 lakh Muslim voters was also a factor favouring his candidacy . However, alliance partner Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT) proposed the name of Varsha Gaikwad as the joint candidate saying Muslim votes alone won’t be enough to win the election. “If Marathi candidate Varsha Gaikawad is fielded, then Shiv Sena (UBT) will easily transfer its votes to Gaikwad in the fiercely contested battle. The calculation is that there are over 4 lakh Muslims, 1 lakh Christians, 1 lakh Dalits, and a con- siderable number of Marathi and non-Marathi voters. The BJP won the last two elections because of support from the Shiv Sena. But the BJP does not have it this time; so, it will face an uphill task even though it has a high-profile lawyer as its candidate,” said a senior Shiv Sena (UBT) leader, who did not prefer to be named in the report. According to reports, Gaikwad herself was not expecting to fight from Mumbai North Central: her first preference was Mumbai South Central, the constituency of her late father Eknath Ujjwal Nikam and Varsha Gaikwad Illustration: Mandar Pardikar Gaikwad. However, Uddhav successfully pushed his party’s candidate Anil Desai for the Mumbai South Central seat. Nikam is a well known lawyer, having appeared for several high-profile cases including the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist case, 1993 Bombay bomb blast case, Gulshan Kumar case, and the sensational Pramod Mahajan murder case. The BJP hopes his popularity will help, on top of the Modi factor. “To win, the BJP needs to get Marathi votes in significant numbers. Otherwise, history will repeat like in 2009, when Congress candidate Priya Dutt trounced senior lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani of the BJP in the Mumbai North Central seat by nearly 1,75,00 vo t e s, ” s a i d a p o l i t i c a l observer. Towards this strategy, the BJP is trying to breach the Sena’s traditional Marathi vote bank by arranging rallies by MNS chief Raj Thackeray .
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