M A I N   N E W S

Prabhat Kumar quits as Governor

New Delhi, January 31
The controversial year-long tenure of Mr Prabhat Kumar as Jharkhand Governor came to an end tonight with his resignation following allegations that he accepted hospitality of a tainted businessman when he was Cabinet Secretary.

Mr Kumar returned to the capital from Ranchi and later sent his resignation to President K.R. Narayanan.

Official sources said Mr Kumar’s resignation would go to the government on whose advice the President would act. Mr Kumar was under intense media scrutiny after the Managing Director of Flex Industries, Mr Ashok Chaturvedi, booked in a duty evasion case, had allegedly told the CBI that he had footed the expenses of some parties hosted at Mr Kumar’s residence when he was the Cabinet Secretary. PTI

Probe illegal structures near arms dump: HC
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 31
Coming down heavily on Punjab’s Chief Secretary for submitting a report that “concealed more than it revealed” in a case pertaining to unauthorised constructions, including marriage palaces, within 1000 yards of Baddowal army ammunition dump on the Ludhiana-Ferozepore road, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today directed Ludhiana’s District and Sessions Judge to hold another inquiry into the matter.

Delivering the verdict, the Bench, comprising Mr Justice N.K. Sodhi and Mr Justice N.K. Sud, observed: “We have gone through the report and are constrained to say that we are disappointed and the whole thing has been an exercise in futility. The impression that one gets from the report is that instead of fixing responsibility on delinquent officers, there has been an attempt to shield them. The CS will have us believe that no one was responsible for raising huge illegal constructions in the prohibited area. His report conceals more than what it reveals. He has only obtained self-serving affidavits of the officers posted at Ludhiana at the relevant time which do not carry us anywhere”.

The Judges further observed: “The CS has confused the whole issue by equating illegal constructions with constructions which already existed at the time of the notification. We had not directed him to inquire why the construction already existing in the prohibited area at the time of the declaration had not been demolished. Our concern was why illegal constructions were allowed to come up at all even after the notification. The inquiry conducted by the CS is of no help to us. We think it is necessary that another inquiry by a judicial officer of the status of a District Judge should be conducted to pin point the responsibility of the defaulting officers”.

Going into the background of the case, the Judge asserted: “While disposing of a civil writ petition and other connected petitions, we had directed the CS to inquire into the circumstances under which unauthorised constructions had come up within the prohibited area near the ammunition dump in the Baddowal area. We had no doubt in our mind that the said constructions had come up either as a result of the laxity on the part of the district or the police administration or was the result of their complicity in this regard. There must have been some officers who had shut their eyes to what was happening. Since the officials responsible could have been senior ones, we had thought that it was proper to ask the CS to hold the inquiry and pin-point responsibility”.

The High Court, in a judgement pronounced in March last year, had asked the CS to inquire into the failure of the district authorities and the police in taking preventive steps at the relevant time. They had further asked him to take suitable action against the erring officials after fixing responsibility. In their detailed order, the Judges had observed: “We have a very strong suspicion that it is not merely a case of inaction but could as well be a case of active connivance of the authorities with the petitioners enabling them to raise huge constructions in the prohibited area”.