IT Chandigarh

Entry restriction on vendors

Chandigarh: The Mohali police and city administration’s move to restrict the entry of vendors here has failed to find favour with the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s division bench headed by Justice M.M. Kumar.

The bench disposed of a petition filed by Mohali vendors taking into into consideration the contention that the action of local police authorities, in the absence of any order by competent authorities, was without jurisdiction.

In the petition against the State of Punjab, deputy commissioner and senior superintendent of police, petitioners Anurudh Kumar and others had sought directions to allow free entry of vendors in the residential areas and to issue identity cards to them as proposed earlier.
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Consumer Courts

Chandigarh: The Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has directed Aggarwal Packers and Movers, DRS Transport Private Limited, to pay Rs 1.3 lakh as compensation for the loss of a Maruti 800 car belonging to an SAS Nagar resident.

The forum asked the company to pay Rs 2,200 as cost of litigation and Rs 30,000 as compensation for harassment, which will be adjusted against the arrears of transportation charges.

The petitioner, Paritosh Jain, had approached Aggarwal Packers and Movers in August, 2006 for transporting his Maruti 800 (1996 model) car to Chandigarh from Thiruvananthapuram.

He handed over the vehicle along with necessary documents to the packers. While the company assured him of delivering the vehicle in Chandigarh around 10 days after the date of booking, they failed to do so.
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CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government’s action in completely withdrawing the security provided by successive Punjab governments for the last 18 years to Patiala-based Shiv Sena Hindustan president Pawan Gupta was on Monday raised in the Punjab & Haryana High Court seeking directions for restoring the same. The petitioner, Pawan Gupta, said he was given “Z’ security that included five armed guards at his home, two personal security officers and the usual escort vehicle. However, he said after he had protested against the SGPC’s installation of a portrait of slain extremist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in the Sikh museum at Amritsar’s Golden Temple, the state government on November 29, 2007 withdrew the escort vehicle and later - on December 11 - the entire security was withdrawn without any order being issued in this regard.

Gupta said this action of the present government was “wholly illegal, arbitrary and against the norms of natural justice”, as a case was also registered against him under sections 107 & 151 of the IPC for allegedly disturbing public peace. The petitioner added the government was “well aware of the persisting threat” to his life and liberty.

Source: The Times of India News Service

Chandigarh: Dr Ajit Grover, owner of Lovely Nursing Home in Burail, and his wife Kamlesh Kaur have been convicted by additional district and sessions judge, Raj Shekhar Attri for allegedly carrying out abortion without the consent of the patient.

The quantum of the sentence will be pronounced on January 25.

Dr Ajit Singh Grover and his wife, trained midwife Kamlesh Kaur, were booked in April 2006, on the complaint of one Surinder Singh. The complainant alleged the two carried out abortion on his pregnant wife, Bimlesh, without consent.

As per the prosecution, Surinder’s wife complained of pain in the stomach and was taken to Lovely Nursing Home. The doctor told her she was pregnant and advised her a few tests. Surinder was asked to wait outside while his wife was taken in for treatment, but was operated upon.
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Custodial Death

Chandigarh: Taking up a petition for direction to add the Section of murder to a custodial death case in Panchkula, Justice Rajesh Bindal of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued notice of motion for March 18.

The petition has been filed against the state of Haryana, Panchkula SSP and others by Shinder, widow of Jogi Ram.

She also demanded the arrest of SHO Hari Pal and Hari Pal Walia and Ravinder Kumar for the “murder” of her husband.

Directions for handing over the investigation to the CBI were also sought, along with compensation on account of the custodial death.

Claiming that the accused police personnel were influential, the petitioner said the respondents had picked up her husband on December 8 and framed him in some false cases.
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CHANDIGARH: Alarmed at the burgeoning overcrowding of jails (16,000 inmates against a capacity of 12,000),the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s nudge to the state government has woken up the prisons department out of its deep slumber.

The enormity of the situation is best reflected from the fact that of these inmates only 30% are convicts while rest of the 70% are undertrials.

With the Punjab and Haryana High Court showing concern for the jail inmates and the issue of overcrowding in prisons, the government seems to be taking a host of corrective steps.

To mop up the wrongdoing, the prison department is drawing from AP Bhatnagar report on prison reforms, submitted a year back and gathering dust until recently, it has taken up the construction of new jails, modernization of existing ones and shuffling the convicts and under-trials from crowded to other jails.

Acknowledging the gravity of matter, DGP, Prisons, Mohd Izhar Alam said, “The department is in the midst of constructing two jails, one each at Kapurthala and Faridkot. Both the jails will house 2,500 inmates each and are likely to be completed by early next year.” The capacity of the jails at Patti, Muktsar and Pathankot is also being enhanced significantly.
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Chandigarh: Claims of the women commission and the child and family welfare department fall flat when one looks at the lengthy procedure of divorce and child custody cases.

According to court records, more than 500 cases pertaining to the Hindu Marriage Act are pending with the district and sessions judge at the district courts here.

Though various schemes are announced to uplift the fairer sex, nothing is being done about the pendency of cases concerning them.

A petitioner says, “One cannot blame the judiciary alone for the pendency of cases. In child custody cases, children are not able to choose between parents. A child’s mind is sensitive and coming to the court at such a tender age is traumatic to the child.”

Advocate Asha Kumari Jaswal says, “I don’t want to disclose the identity of the petitioner, but a woman’s divorce case has been pending in the Panchkula courts for the past eight years. One of the reasons for the delay is that respondents take months to accept summons.”
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CHANDIGARH: In what could come as a big relief for Punjab’s beleaguered ex-DGP SS Virk, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday ordered constitution of a fresh team to investigate charges of corruption against the Maharashtra cadre officer.

Maintaining that the new probe team has to be in place within the next 10 days, the court, however, declined to hand over investigation to the CBI.

Critical about the integrity of the investigations from the very beginning, the court once again came down heavily on the government pointing out loopholes in the inquiry.

Directing the Punjab home secretary to disband the present team of investigators within seven days - the fresh team will be headed by a senior superintendent of police - Justice HS Bhalla said the new investigating officer and his associates shall not be influenced in any manner by material already collected by the previous team.

The gravity of these directions can be gauged from the fact that for all practical purposes, these amount to taking the investigation out of the Vigilance Bureau’s purview. The order also criticized repealing of the State Vigilance Commission Act 2006 and questioned the appointment of Sumedh Singh Saini as director, Vigilance.
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Chandigarh: With an endeavour to expedite the disposal of backlog in the states of Punjab and Haryana, a committee of five judges headed by Chief Justice Justice Vijender Kumar Jain has recommended the names of thirteen Judges for appointment to various fast track courts.

The names will be placed before the Full Court for clearance. If cleared, eight Judges will be appointed for fast track courts in Punjab while five will be appointed as ad hoc Judges for fast track courts in Haryana.

It might be recalled that the Chief Justice had earlier also expressed concern over the increasing backlog of cases in the two states owing to the lack of Judges. It is apt to mention here that the Punjab and Haryana High Court has already hit an all time high by having the maximum number of Judges, including a woman Judge. It will not be out of place to mention here that on December 6 last year, the Chief Justice had promoted 23 Chief Judicial Magistrates (CJMs) and senior sub judges to the rank of Additional District and Session Judges (ADJs).
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Chandigarh: In an order aimed at preserving Chandigarh’s architectural ethos, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that multi-storey apartments or additional covered area will not only be an”assault” on the city’s character and heritage, but will also put hard-to-sustain pressure on the northern sectors: from Sector 2 to Sector 5.

The Bench, comprising Chief Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Kanwaljit Singh Ahluwalia, has directed status quo on a property in Sector 4 where “multiple flats” were to come up.

Taking up the matter, the Bench has ruled: “The Sectors from 2 to 5 are prime sectors of Chandigarh. Often, as a misnomer in common parlance, they are called posh or elite sectors of Chandigarh.

“The reason is simple to find. These sectors have an unhindered landscape of Shivalik Hill as background. Le Corbusier had a vision of a clear skyline and landscape for Chandigarh. Therefore, the first block of Sectors 2, 3, 4 and 5 contain big plots of four and eight kanals, and also low construction.

“In the second block of Sectors from 7 to 11, third block of sectors from 12 to 19; and thereafter fourth and fifth block onwards, as the number of sectors increase, the density of population also increases”.
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