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| Wednesday,
April 11, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Huge arms haul on poll eve HC reserves order
on Jaya’s plea Antony breaks silence Dowry case: SC sets aside verdict Fresh charges framed in Jessica case Next LS poll on EVMs: Gill |
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HC approves use of EVMs No to Sharad’s bail
plea IPM project for HP, Punjab, Haryana YC targets PM; to hold rally on March 16 Sinha calls for creation of state textile depts 1,000 tourists stranded in Darjeeling bandh SC’s concern over Yamuna waters Court stay on
road through national park
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Huge arms haul on poll eve Patna, April 10 As the state’s security arrangements stand as a poor match to the troublemakers’ might, an unprecedented bloodbath awaits, the tall claims of the administration apart. The Monday evening recovery of one quintal of explosives and huge quantity of arms and ammunition from the houses of two ‘Mukhiya’ candidates from Motihari district is only a small glimpse of the things to come. The state DGP, Mr R.R. Prasad, on Monday struck a note of caution and threat to the troublemakers, saying the state government had printed only 2 per cent extra ballot papers and any sort of violence making the re-poll possibility would be disastrous for the candidates. The State Election Commissioner, Mr M.L. Mazumdar, not discounting the possibility of violence however told that forces have been deployed at all the blocks. Altogether 23,972 polling booths in 1711 Panchayats of the 113 blocks go for polls in the first phase tomorrow. The picture presented by the DGP tells it all. The state had sought 20,000 rifles from the Centre that were not made available. The consignment of rifles from the neighbouring states had not reached the state headquarters till Monday. So far only 1000 rifles could reach from Varanasi. The rifles could not be loaded from Madhya Pradesh as the request reached late. The state government has decided to depute forces not at the booths but at the election centres where the ballot papers would reach. Of the total security personnel, more than 50 per cent are home guards wielding lathis. They would be deputed at the booths. Most paramilitary men would be deployed in the extremist-infested areas leaving the northern sensitive belt on the home guards. All booths have been declared sensitive, most of them super sensitive, following the state Intelligence reports. The figures given by the DGP on the success of the cops may sound impressive but given the extent of the task it is only meager. The DGP said that so far 30712 persons with dubious background had been identified and 8600 goons/local dons arrested so far. Out of it 1200 were hardcore criminals. 550 arms had been recovered in various raids on the hideouts of these criminals and so far 22 mini gun factories had been destroyed. The Monday events however only point out at the fact that the state police has not done enough. The raids in Akbarpur and Dhaka Panchayats on Monday yielded not only arms and explosives but also huge quantity of ‘desi sharab’ (country-made liquor). The recoveries were made from the houses of two candidates, Mr Jaymangal Rai and Mr Manoj Kumar Jaysawal, and the arrest of seven persons are indicators of the violence planned by the candidates. On Monday itself, half a dozen armed criminals shot dead a youth in Anandpur village of Danapur subdivision, a few kilometres off the state capital. The deceased was elected unopposed as the ward member of the Panchayat. Also on the same day, the police busted a mini-gun factory at Mahmuda village of the Barh subdivision falling under Patna district. A huge quantity of finished and semi-finished revolver and rifles were recovered. |
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HC reserves order on Jaya’s plea Chennai, April 10 It may be recalled that Special Judge P. Anbazhagan had in October convicted and sentenced Ms Jayalalitha to three years’ RI and two years’ RI in the two Tansi cases in respect of Jaya Publications and Sasi Enterprises, respectively. On an appeal filed by her, the high court had suspended the sentence in November and the appeal is pending. As per Section 8 (3) of the Representation of People Act, a person convicted for two years and above would be disqualified from contesting the elections for six years from the date of conviction.
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Antony breaks silence Thiruvananthapuram, April 10 Reacting sharply to projecting him as “the prime accused” in the denial of ticket to Mr Karunakaran’s daughter Padmaja, leading to the present crisis, Mr Antony said he did not deliberately propose her name for the ticket as “I don’t want to be humiliated and hurt again as it happened in 1989.” But he had made it clear that he would not oppose if someone else was to propose her name. “And nobody, even the supporters of Mr Karunakaran, did suggest her name,” he said. Hoping that the present crisis would be resolved soon, he asked Mr Karunakaran to restrain his supporters and abide by the decision of the high command to allot 34 seats to the faction. Mr Antony, who is also a working committee member, claimed that during the last three years, if at all any group was favoured with largesses by the high command, it was the Karunakaran group. “But I did not quarrel for the sake of maintaining cordial relations within the party”. “I was the one who always took the initiative to satisfy him and even make him the Chief Minister four times”, he added. Mr Antony said the organisational polls did not take place because of the rival faction. Everyone knew how the returning officer was humiliated and sent back to Delhi. The KPCC was the only unit which did not celebrate 50 years of Independence. It was because Mr Karunakaran did not like to join it due to his personal enmity with former PCC chief Vayalar Ravi.
“In 1998, Mr Karunakaran, then a Rajya Sabha member, wanted to contest the LS election and we allowed it at the cost of the RS seat going to the rival front”, he recalled.
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Dowry case: SC sets aside verdict New Delhi, April 10 The Bench comprising Mr Justice M.B. Shah and Mr Justice S.N. Variava observed: “Yet the accused are let off for various reasons. The result is that violence against women continues unabated as law loses its deterrent effect. In some cases sentence already undergone is awarded without verifying whether the accused has undergone any sentence at all. The Bench setting aside a judgement in a dowry torture case of Kanpur, directed the High Court to decide afresh the revision application. According to the facts of the case, Kusum Kumari was subjected to physical torture for dowry and beaten with a burning stick by her mother-in-law Bilasa Devi and sister-in-law Neelam. Kusum fled to the house of her father’s sister. A case under Section 498 A of the Indian Penal Code was registered by Kusum’s father. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate convicted both accused along with Kusum’s husband Raj Kumar and sentenced them to rigorous imprisonment for one year and imposed on them a fine of Rs 1000 each. The Magistrate held that the accused persons had asked Kusum to bring money from her father and when she could not arrange do so, the accused mercilessly beat her and planned to attack her with a burning wooden stick. An Additional Sessions Judge dismissed the appeal filed by the husband and mother-in-law, but set aside the conviction of the sister-in-law, Neelam. The High Court on a revision filed by the husband and mother-in-law maintaining the conviction of both accused reduced the sentence to the period they had already been in jail. They were directed to be released on depositing the fine amount. The Supreme Court judgement observed: “It is apparent that the High Court has modified the sentence without recording any reasons and without considering the crime prevalent in society for unjustified demand of dowry.” In any case, before exercising its revisional jurisdiction, the court said, the High Court should have considered the facts and applied its mind as to whether it was a fit case for reducing the sentence. Allowing the appeal by Narsingh Prasad Singh, father of Kusum, the court remanded back the case to the High Court for deciding the revision application afresh on merit.
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Fresh charges framed in Jessica case New Delhi, April 10 Amending the earlier charge framed by Mr S.M. Chopra, Additional Sessions Judge H.R. Malhotra framed charges against Alok Khanna and Shyam Sunder under various Sections of the IPC. Alok Khanna, a friend of the main accused Sidharth Vashisth, alias Manu Sharma, was charged with conspiracy and disappearance of the evidence under Sections 120(B) and 201 of the IPC. It was alleged in the chargesheet that Alok had removed the Tata Safari car belonging to Manu Sharma from the restaurant, where the incident took place. Shyam Sunder, Manu’s uncle, was charged with a similar charge in addition to harbouring of the evidence in Jessica Lal’s murder. He was charged under Sections 201 and 212 of the IPC. It was alleged by the prosecution that Shyam Sunder had removed the pistol used by Manu and helped another co-accused Ravinder Kishen Sudan, alias Titu, to leave the country soon after the incident. Titu had been declared a proclaimed offender by the trial court. The court also removed Section 201 (removal of evidence) against Manu Sharma and Vikas Yadav as directed by the Delhi High Court on March 13. The accused would be asked to plead their guilt or innocence tomorrow as the order was not typed out today. The court would take their signatures and fix the date for the beginning of the trial and recording of evidence.
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Next LS poll on EVMs: Gill New Delhi, April 10 However, Dr Gill pointed out that the Commission would make further procurement of the EVMs only after the successful conduct of the ensuing Assembly polls in four states and a union territory. Stating that it was for the first time that the use of the EVMs had been challenged in a court, he said the machines made by the Public Sector Undertakings ECIL and BEL had been put to effective and extensive use in the last few years. “The commission has taken a historic step in holding the polls through EVMs in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry and in few Assembly segments at Guwahati in Assam”, Dr Gill said. He asked the political parties in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, where Assembly polls are due next year, to be mentally prepared for elections through the EVMs. “The Commission was already in possession of three lakh EVMs,” he said. In the last parliamentary elections held in 1999, it was used in 45 Lok Sabha seats spread over 18 states and six crore electorate voted through the EVMs. Meanwhile, the commission has issued 16-point instructions to the Chief Electoral Officers of the states going for polls for the safe-keeping of electronic voting machines. The measures included stock taking, docketing, double locking and double sealing. The inner door of the result section would also be sealed with a special tag so that this portion could not be opened until the control unit was taken to the counting table on the day of counting. Apart from Assam, the other four assembly polls — in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry — are to be fully electronic. In Assam, five constituencies are using the EVMs. “We have issued directions to keep the EVMs the way the RBI keeps currency notes,” Dr Gill said. |
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HC approves use of EVMs Chennai, April 10 A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice N.K. Jain and Mr Justice M. Sampath of the Madras High Court gave the green signal for the use of the machines while dismissing a batch of writ petitions, including the one filed by AIADMK General Secretary and former Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha, seeking to restrain the EC from using the machines.
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No to Sharad’s bail
plea Patna, April 10 The judge, Mr Harishchandra Singh, rejected the bail plea of Mr Yadav. The court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Madhepura district of Bihar, had in March issued two non-bailable arrest warrants against the Janata Dal (U) president and Union Civil Aviation Minister. |
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IPM project for HP, Punjab, Haryana New Delhi, April 10 The crops covered under the project, which would receive Rs 3 crore in financial support from the National Agricultural Technology Project, are cotton, pigeonpea, chickpea, groundnut, tomato, cabbage, apple and mango. These crops use 70 per cent of the country’s total pesticide. The project is unique in the participatory nature involving public sector research institutions, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, private sector pesticide industries, NGOs and farmers. The IPM technology for crop protection is cheaper and environment friendly as compared to chemical pesticides. These involve monitoring of pest population in the field and if their population crosses the danger mark, the IPM recommends the use of bio-pesticides and minimum use of chemical pesticides. According to the ICAR, though the IPM modules are available for various crops, their popularisation through farmers’ education and the availability of bio-agents have been major constraints. It said the involvement of industry like Biotech International, Dhanuka Group, Excell Industries, Monsanto and Syngenta in the project would not only help in making the quality bio-agents available to the farmers but would also support the project through the establishment of IPM clubs in villages and organising training for farmers. Around 2000 officials and workers would be trained in the project which would further have a catalytic effect on popularising this technology, it added. |
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YC targets PM; to hold rally on March 16 New Delhi, April 10 The Youth Congress chief’s utterances come a day after the ruling NDA warned the Congress to stop ‘obscene demonstrations’ by its workers against the Prime Minister. The NDA had said that if the Congress continued with demonstrations during which black flags were raised, its President Sonia Gandhi would face similar protests. However, the Mr Surjewala made it clear that the Youth Congress would not tone down its attack, which the organisation had , primarily, directed at the Prime Minister. The Youth Congress was even planning to publicise the reported statement made by Mr Vajpayee in a court after the Quit-India agitation, which, it claims, led to imprisonment of some agitationists then. Asserting that they would not be cowed down by the NDA leaders’ warning, Mr Surjewala said that they had become more emboldened to carry out the agitation, which he described as ‘fight to the finish’. The Youth Congress, whose rallies in different parts of the country over the Tehelka expose, have faced police lathi charge with Mr Surjewala also receiving heavy blows at a rally in Chandigarh, announced that a rashtriya suraksha rally would be held in New Delhi on March 16 - the day Parliament reconvenes after a break. Mr Surjewala accused the BJP leadership of adopting ‘fascist’ attitude on the Youth Congress agitation. He said that rallies were held in all parts of the country, including Hyderabad, Vijaywada, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Hamirpur. |
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Sinha calls for creation of state textile depts New Delhi, April 10 Addressing a State Textile Ministers conference, called to discuss among other matters, the impact of the WTO agreement on the sector, Mr Sinha said that the handicraft and handloom weavers should be insulated from vagaries of market fluctuations to save them from taking extreme steps like suicides. For this some of the recently launched insurance Schemes should be suitably adapted for the benefits of workers in the country. Mr Sinha stressed on the need for involving States with regard to implementation of schemes for the benefit of weavers and artisans. “We should evolve the commonality of approach between states and Government of India”, he said. The Union Textiles Minister, Mr Kashiram Rana, said the annual target for textile exports had been raised from $15 billion to $17 billion in the current year while the 10-year perspective as envisaged in the new textile policy was for an annual export of $ 50 billion by 2010. Mr Rana informed the conference that two new programmes—the integrated textile park scheme and the scheme for development of critical infrastructure in existing export-oriented clusters of industry— had been proposed for this purpose. |
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1,000 tourists stranded in Darjeeling bandh Kolkata, April 10 The bandh call was given as a mark of protest against the failure of the Left Front government to arrest people involved in the attempt of killing Mr Subhas Ghising on his way back home after attending meeting with Mr L.K. Advani in New Delhi on February 6. Mr Ghising with severe gun-shot wound had been admitted in a local nursing home in Siliguri for over a month. Mr Chhatrey Subha, Orkha Liberation Organisation (GLO) chief, who belongs to anti-Ghising camp, was allegedly involved in the attempt on Ghising’s life. He was arrested recently from a hideout at Kalimpong, but his other associates were still at large. The bandh was complete. Offices, schools and colleges did not open. Markets, shops and other establishments were also closed. All tea gardens, numbering 72, were also closed. Transport operating between Darjeeling town and Siliguri and Gangtok (Sikkim), did not operate. People, fearing trouble, kept themselves confined to their houses and tourists to their hotel rooms. However, no untoward incident was reported. The hill city looked deserted. Only GNLF workers and volunteers could be seen in groups at several places, raising slogans and demonstrating. Chief Secretary, Manish Gupta told The Tribune that the government had arranged sending additional paramilitary forces to Darjeeling to help the district administration in handling the situation. He said the police had been specifically asked to arrange the safe return of the stranded tourists and others who needed immediate shifting to Siliguri on medical grounds and other emergency works. Chief Minister, Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, now busy in electioneering in south Bengal districts, regretted that a long-drawn bandh had been called in the hills during the pre-election period. He appealed to Mr Ghising to immediately call off the bandh in the larger interest of the state. He assured Mr Ghising that the administration would try its best to arrest the others involved in the attempt on his life. Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, however, supported the cause for calling the bandh in Darjeeling. She alleged that the government had been failing in maintaining law and order situation not only in other areas, but also in the hills, which had prompted the GNLF to call for the bandh. Congress leader A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury, also former Railway Minister, however, strongly criticised Mr Ghising’s calling a month-long bandh in the hills. Mr Ghani, who hails from Malda, an adjacent district of Darjeeling, said the bandh did not have any public support and was politically motivated. |
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SC’s concern over Yamuna waters New Delhi, April 10 The court also lamented that its earlier directions of ensuring quality water for drinking and washing had not been implemented by the authorities concerned. A three - Judge bench comprising Mr Justice B.N. Kirpal, Mrs Justice Ruma Pal and Mr Justice Brijesh Kumar while hearing the case taken up by the court suo motu on the basis of a newspaper report, directed the Union Urban Development Ministry to file an affidavit detailing how it proposed to implement its action plan to keep the Yamuna clean. The Judges directed the Delhi Chief Secretary to file an affidavit about the steps taken to ensure that the required quality of water in the Yamuna could no longer be called “dirty” after March 31, 2003. The Bench monitored the progress made by the authorities concerned on its directions regarding cleaning of the river. It noted that the Urban Development Ministry had furnished its action plan for cleaning the river. It was imperative now that necessary steps were taken to achieve the required water quality for drinking and washing purposes, the court said. |
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Court stay on
road through national park Dehra Dun, April 10 The stay orders have come in the wake of the writ petition filed by the Wild Life Protection Society, an NGO. It had maintained that with the construction of road, the traffic would create problems for the tigers in this tiger reserve. The stay orders will be effective till the final decision of the Supreme Court. |
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Non-procurement Hanumangarh, April 10 |
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