The Bombay high court on Tuesday rejected the bail application filed by naval officer Emile Jerome, a convict in the Neeraj Grover murder case. While denying him bail, the court held that there was enough circumstantial material against him in the case.
The high court also expedited hearing of the appeals filed by the state government seeking enhancement of sentence and Jerome against the conviction and posted it for hearing in February. While rejecting the bail application, division bench of justices V.M. Kanade and M.L. Tahalayani observed that there is sufficient circumstantial evidence in the case and at the most the court can expedite hearing on the appeals filed by Jerome and the state.

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6 AMRI OFFICIALS’ Police remand extended
AGE CORRESPONDENT
Kolkata, Dec. 20

The Alipore court extended the police custody of the six board of directors of the AMRI Hospitals on Tuesday by three more days after a marathon hearing which continued till evening.
In the afternoon, the detective department (DD) of the Kolkata police brought S.K. Todi, Ravi Todi, R.S. Goenka, Manish Goenka, Prashant Goenka and D.N. Agarwal from Lalbazar, the city police headquarters, and produced them before chief judicial magistrate (CJM) C.H. Karim after their nine-day police custody ended.
The Congress workers as well as other protesters took out processions in the court premises demanding death sentence for the accused.

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Stalin pays surprise visit to raja in tihar
AGE CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Dec. 20

The DMK’s heir apparent and former Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin on Tuesday made a surprise visit to the national capital and called on former Union minister A. Raja at Tihar.
According to sources, Mr Stalin, who spent around 30 minutes with Mr Raja, apparently persuaded him to apply for bail. Mr Stalin reportedly told Mr Raja that the party was fully behind him in his legal battle and that it was confident that he would be granted bail if only he applied for it. The visit comes in the backdrop of Mr Raja waiting to apply for bail as he doesn’t want to take chances before all others are granted bail.
Mr Raja has been languishing in jail from February.

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Major fire in Kolkata again, no casualties
RAJIB CHOWDHURI
Kolkata, Dec. 20

After the AMRI Hospital in Dhakuria, it was a shoe factory which was devastated by a major fire at C.N. Roy Road at Tiljala on Monday late night. No one was injured in the incident. But the blaze which continued to gut the four-storeyed factory building for over 12 hours exposed the ground reality of blatant violation of fire safety norms at business establishments in this industrial belt of the city.
The locals noticed the shoe factory Bruit Footwear Pvt Ltd in flames at around 10.30 pm. Around 20 fire engines were called in.

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Presumptive basis global norm: cag
AGE CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Dec. 20

Defending the “presumptive basis” of calculating loss incurred to the national exchequer due to 2G spectrum allocation scam, CAG Vinod Rai on Tuesday told the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) that such basis was a globally accepted norm. The JPC is probing into the 2G spectrum case. Mr Rai however, also conceded to panel’s objections that “presumptive loss “mechanism was neither mentioned in any legislation nor a practice to calculate loss. Sources disclosed Mr Rai also told panel members that the former DG (Audit) of the national auditor, R P Singh, who prepared the draft report, was aware of all the communications between the CAG and ministries/departments concerned.

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Chandra’s plea to go abroad dismissed
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, Dec. 20

Dashing the hopes of Unitech Ltd managing director Sanjay Chandra, facing trial for his alleged role in the 2G spectrum case, a Delhi court on Tuesday dismissed his plea to go abroad for treatment of his nine-year-old son.
“Your application is dismissed,” special CBI judge O.P. Saini said, turning down Mr Chandra’s plea to go abroad for treatment of his son, diagnosed with diabetes.
Mr Chandra had sought permission to go abroad between December 24 and 29 during the court’s winter vacations saying the doctor has given him appointment for December 27. The CBI, however, had opposed the plea saying probe regarding the money trail in the 2G case was still on.