UP Lokayukta gets complaint against top officers

The Home Department,under Fateh Bahadur,accepted this report,ignoring the previous report.

UP Lokayukta N K Mehrotra has received a complaint against Principal Secretary Home Kunwar Fateh Bahadur and ADG Economic Offences Wing R N Singh,alleging they scuttled two investigations in Economic Offences Wing to help some persons accused of financial fraud.

The complaint has been lodged by Nutan Thakur,a social activist and wife of IPS officer Amitabh Thakur who had recently filed a writ petition at Lucknow bench of Allahabad HCdemanding a high-level inquiry into harassment by Principal Secretary Home and Vijay Singh,Secretary to the CM.

According to the complainant,in one of the cases related with Ms Sri Acid Company Limited,Amroha,the directors had allegedly swindled a subsidy of Rs 32.61 lakh,while in the other the directors of Ms Amroha Fin Company had allegedly cheated share-holders to the tune of around Rs 45.99 lakh.

The complaint said the matter was investigated by EOWMeerut sector who sent a report dated 24 December 2009 to the Home Department,Uttar Pradesh.

The report,allegedly,found the owners of the company accused but R N Singh,on his own,changed the report without any substantial basis and declared them innocent. The Home Department,under Fateh Bahadur,accepted this report,ignoring the previous report.

Food Bill: MPs back demand for uniform entitlement

With the government hurrying up internal deliberations to push its National Food Security Bill in the current session of Parliament,activists under the Right to Food Campaign on Tuesday got MPs across party lines to support their demand for uniform universal foodgrain entitlement under the proposed law.

A clutch of MPs from different political parties Prakash Javdekar BJP,Keshav Rao Congress,D Raja CPI,M B Rajesh and P Rajeeve CPM and Mohan Singh SP joined ranks at a public hearing in the capital to lend their support to universal public distribution system PDS to provide food security under the proposed law.

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The hearing organised by the Right to Food Campaign also witnessed participation from NAC member Aruna Roy,social activist Binayak Sen,Kavita Srivastava and Swami Agnivesh among others.

The name Food Security Act is a misnomer. It is better titled as Food Insecurity Act, CPM leader Brinda Karat said,addressing the gathering.

She criticised the government for dividing the population between below poverty line BPL and above poverty line APL categories and demanded that the Bill must provide universal food rights without any division of APL and BPL.