Sirsa, May 3
Sadhna Mittal, protection officer under the Domestic Violence Act, has found both teachers of the Journalism and Mass Communication Department of Chaudhary Devi Lal University here guilty of sexual harassment of a student of the department in the probe conducted by her.

In her report submitted to Deputy Commissioner Yudhbir Singh Khyalia today, Mittal found the allegations of the complainant to be true.

She said while one of the two teachers made remarks bordering sexual harassment to the girl, the conduct of the other teacher too was “suspicious” as he observed silence, when his colleague made remarks that had direct inference to him. Khyalia had asked Mittal to probe the allegations of the complainant after reports in this regard were published in The Tribune and after the Haryana State Commission for Women intervened in the matter and wrote to him as well as the DGP, Haryana, and the university authorities.

The complaint, a student of the final year of the JMC Department of the university, had alleged in her complaint to the authorities that the teacher she chose as her guide for dissertation had been delaying the finalisation of the questionnaire of her research without any valid reason.

She alleged that when she went to him on April 6 for this purpose, another teacher, who shares office with him, told her that “she will have to fulfil the desires of her guide for the completion of her dissertation”. He also allegedly threatened to spoil her career, when she objected to the teacher’s conduct.

She alleged that her guide not only observed a discreet silence, he kept smirking during the entire conversation.

While Mittal was looking into these allegations, some girls of the department complained that the “tainted teachers” had been using their authority to grant internal assessment as a tool for sexual harassment of girls.

After these allegations, Mittal also summoned records of the internal assessment awarded by these teachers.

Though Mittal refused to divulge the details of her report, sources said she has found both teachers guilty of the offence of sexual harassment. The Deputy Commissioner’s office confirmed the receipt of the report but said Khyalia was preoccupied in Governor Jagannath Pahadia’s impending visit to Sirsa on May 8. Pahadia will be the chief guest at a state-level function to mark Red Cross Day on May 8. Meanwhile, the report of the university’s committee on this issue is being examined by the legal cell of the university. Registrar RK Sehgal said the authorities would act upon the report after getting legal opinion on that.

Yamunanagar, May 3
In a significant order, the district consumer court today said finance companies “cannot employ musclemen” to take possession of vehicles from persons who are unable to pay loans in time. The recovery of vehicles can only be done through legal means, the consumer court said while deciding six complaints against different finance companies.

The court also directed the finance companies to pay adequate compensation to the complainants.

“The Supreme Court has not authorised financiers to take possessions of vehicles by forcible means. The possession of the vehicle (truck) in question was taken forcibly by finance companies in an illegal manner and sold without giving any notice to the complainant, which amounts to unfair trade practice,” president of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum Dina Nath Arora, along with a member, VK Sharma, said in an order while deciding the case of Shahnaj, a resident of Khizrabad village, who had filed a complaint against Paras Financial Services, Saharanpur, Megma Leasing Ltd, Ambala Cantt, and Megma Leasing Ltd, Kolkata.

“We direct the finance companies to refund the amount deposited by the complainant with them along with the margin money and to pay Rs 50,000 in lump sum as compensation and the cost of litigation.

“The order should be complied with within one month, failing which penal action will be initiated. If the finance companies fail to comply with the order within the stipulated period, these will also have to pay interest at the rate of 9 per cent per annum on the amount deposited by the complainant with them and the margin money.”

In her complaint, Shahnaj had stated that she had purchased a truck for Rs 6,17,000 from Saharanpur. She had paid Rs 1 lakh as earnest money while the remaining amount was financed from the companies at a monthly instalment of Rs 14,000.

She said one instalment was paid in cash at the time of the purchase of the truck while after that she had paid 14 instalments regularly.

Thereafter her husband became seriously ill and had to be admitted to a hospital in Delhi. He later died. As a result, the complainant could not deposit three instalments.

However, “musclemen” of the finance companies allegedly came to her residence and forcibly took away the vehicle. She was ready to pay the instalments, but the finance companies paid no heed.

The finance companies, however, claimed that the complainant was a regular defaulter in making payments.

Chandigarh, May 3
In government schools of Haryana, education may come for free but power doesn’t. Students of some government schools are forced to partially foot their power bills and contribute Rs 2 each. School heads and the faculty maintain that this collection is clubbed with the funds available under “amalgamated funds” to pay the electricity bill.

Teachers at Government Senior Secondary School, Kunjpura, say:

“There is no fund set aside in the government set-up for paying power bills. We get an average bill of nearly Rs 4,000 to 5,000 a month. In the absence of any funds, we are forced to collect Rs 2 from every student.

“Besides the collection, we take the balance money from the “amalgamated funds” because there is no other source of income. The entire money for the payment of bills cannot be taken from that fund because it is used for a number of other purposes.”

There is another problem for the “big” bill- a school airconditioner installed by the district administration for its use only.

“They have put up a separate sub-meter but have never paid for the units consumed. It’s been a couple of years that a data collection centre was set up at our school.

“Officials visit it thrice a month and the airconditioner runs all day long. Our children pay for that too,” the teacher adds.

At Senior Secondary School, Damla, the authorities explain: “We money collected is put it in the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) fund from which we pay the power bill.

“We forward the bill to the District Education Officer for the excess amount.”

At the Bada Gaon Government School, students pay for the power too.

“We don’t have a regular sweeper and watchman. We have to pay them out of the “amalgamated funds” at our disposal.

“We collect Rs 2 from of our students and club these with the fund to pay our power bill, as also to make payments to the sweeper and watchman,” explains a faculty member.

Once in a blue moon, the department sanctions Rs 5,000 as one-time payment to meet any odd expenditure but that is not enough given.

Officials in the Education Department admit that there is no separate fund earmarked for the purpose though the government does give a lumpsum from time to time.

Also, there is a provision that school heads can forward their bills, for power and the telephone, to the head office for payment in case they are not able to pay from the funds available. Why the heads of schools have resorted to the easier way out by collecting money from the children is anybody’s guess.

New Delhi, May 3
A Delhi court today granted interim bail to former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala in a disproportionate assets case.

Granting relief to Chautala, Special CBI Judge PS Teji directed the sitting MLA from Haryana to furnish a personal bond and a surety of Rs 1 lakh each by tomorrow.Chautala appeared before the court after it issued summons on April 20, seeking his presence in person after taking cognisance of the charge sheet filed against him by the CBI.

The court will hear Chautala's plea for regular bail on Tuesday.

The CBI had on March 26 filed the charge sheet against Chautala for allegedly possessing assets worth Rs 6 crore disproportionate to his known sources of income between 1993 and 2006.

Chautala, 75, is a five-time Chief Minister. He last held the post between July 1999 to March 2005. He now represents the Uchana Kalan constituency in Hisar district. According to the CBI, Chautala was found in possession of assets to the tune of Rs 6.09 crore disproportionate to his known sources of income. It is roughly 189 per cent of his income of Rs 3.22 crore during the period.

It claimed Chautala had been found in possession of immovable and movable assets worth Rs 7.43 crore in addition to the expenditure incurred by him for Rs 1.91 crore during the period.

The CBI had registered a case in a designated court here in April 2006 and searched 24 premises owned by the Chautalas in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Chandigarh during which it had seized Rs 13 lakh in cash and frozen five bank accounts with Rs 1.34 crore belonging to Chautala and his family members.

Faridabad, May 3
Concerned over large-scale misuse of the available pool of electricity, the power authorities in Haryana have warned public that they would crack the whip against those who do not abide by the rules.

Managing Director of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Sudhir Rajpal, who reviewed the power position in Faridabad along with senior officers of the power department, said the major reason of overloading of the system was unauthorised extension of load on the part of consumers.

He urged the power consumers to go in for extension of load by adopting legal procedures. He cautioned that under the Electricity Act, 2003, unauthorised extension of load was tantamount to theft which invited strict legal action.

A large number of consumers use much more power than the sanctioned load. The authorities plan and distribute power vide the feeders to the transformers as per the sanctioned load in the areas/cluster of areas. The increased but unaccounted burden of load leads to disturbance and collapse of transformers.

In a significant development, it was revealed in the review meeting convened by Sudhir Rajpal about 75MVA capacity was likely to be added in the entire transmission system in Faridabad during this week by energising additional transformers at five substations. These substations are of varying capacity and feed power to Faridabad.

The officers of the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam said transformers of 26/31 MVA capacity each have been set up by replacing old transformers of about 21/16 MVA capacity to augment capacity of 66 kV substations.

The capacity of 66 kV substations, including at Bhagola and Aurangabad, were recently augmented by commissioning a transformer of 16 MVA capacity at each substation. The works on augmenting capacity 66 kV substations at Hathin, Chandhut and Chhaisan was also claimed to be at advanced stage.

Chandigarh, May 3
The Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) has allowed the purchase of solar power from 1 to 3 MW capacity projects by the state utilities on the levelised tariff fixed by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC).

Stating this here recently, the Director, Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency (HAREDA), Sumita Misra, said the state had taken a lead in the implementation of the solar generation programme under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission as the state electricity regulatory commission had issued orders for the fixation of tariff and grid connectivity issues under the solar mission.

She said the levelised tariff for the projects which had not availed of accelerated depreciation benefits would be Rs 17.91 per unit and the projects which had availed of accelerated depreciation benefits would be Rs 14.95 per unit. Further, these projects would be connected to the grid at below 33 kV level and the distribution licensee would provide the necessary approvals and infrastructure for evacuation of power generated from these solar projects. The state power utilities would enter into a power purchase agreement with the developers for the purchase of solar power for 25 years.

She said to promote the generation of power from solar energy, the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy had launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission under India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change which was formally launched by the Prime Minister on January 11. Under this mission, an ambitious target of generation of 20,000 MW from solar energy had been envisaged in three phases up to 2022. In phase one, from 2010-13, 1,000 MW grid-connected solar power projects would be developed. Two types of solar power projects would be developed under this mission. One above 5 MW capacity to be promoted by NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Ltd and small solar PV projects in the range of 1 to 3 MW capacity to be promoted by states and power from these small projects would be purchased directly by the state utilities on the tariff fixed by the state electricity regulatory commission.

Chandigarh, May 3
The Haryana Raj Bhawan here will soon go solar. Plans are afoot to install a solar power plant of 45 kW capacity, which will energise 160 tubelights, 100 CFLs, 40 fans, 10 computers and 15 exhaust fans during the day and outdoor lighting during the night.

According to Madhusudan Prasad, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Renewable Energy, the plant will be set up under a project sanctioned by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to substitute the conventional energy with renewable energy. Besides, plants of 4.5 kW capacity each will be installed at collectorate offices of Ambala, Jind, Kurukshetra, Rewari, Fatehabad, Hisar, Faridabad, Sonepat, Narnaul and Panchkula districts. The total cost of these plants will be Rs 2 crore.

The Union Ministry will provide 100 per cent grant of Rs 1 crore for the solar plant at the Raj Bhawan and Rs 50 lakh as 50 per cent share for 10 district collectorate offices at the rate of Rs 5 lakh per district.

The remaining share of Rs 50 lakh will be borne by the state government.

Chandigarh, May 3
The Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) plans to assign the responsibility of meter reading, bill distribution and collection of payment to members of the Haryana Ex-Services League (HESL) in urban areas. The decision has been taken in view of the staff shortage in the nigam.

Nigam MD Arun Kumar, while reviewing the progress of operation activities here yesterday, asked superintending engineers to implement the plan in one sub-division of each operation circle as a pilot project. He said earlier this responsibility was assigned to the HESL in rural areas and its performance was good.

He said most of the consumers involved in stealing electricity had been identified and action against them would be initiated soon. In most of the power theft cases, the meters were found tampered.

Therefore, all meters would be properly sealed and defective meters would be replaced. — TNS

Chandigarh, May 3
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has put Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker on notice in a promotion matter.

Acting on a petition by Luxmi Narayan and 20 other Vidhan Sabha assistants against the promotion of Speaker’s personal secretary Manohar Lal, Justice Permod Kohli also issued notice of motion to Haryana Chief Secretary and other respondents on the petition seeking quashing of orders promoting him to the post of information-cum-coordination officer. Justice Kohli also ordered a stay on the operation of the impugned order. The petitioner alleged the orders was issued in an illegal manner, without considering them for the post and contrary to the provisions of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha Secretariat Service Rules.

The petitioners stated that initially the post of assistant information officer had fallen vacant. The Speaker wanted to promote Manohar Lal to the post in an arbitrary manner, without considering the names of other eligible persons.

The petitioners moved the High Court, which dismissed the petition with a direction to the respondents to first decide their representation.

But to wriggle out, the respondents re-designated the post as information and coordination officer and promoted Manohar Lal.

Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed Kaithal SP to order a probe by an officer not below the DSP’s rank into submission of forged documents in the court in an admission matter.

Taking up the matter, Justice Permod Kohli asserted: “The matter is serious and a probe is needed to investigate the matter and to ascertain as to who forged the signatures of students on copies of a civil writ petition filed in the High Court”.

Directing the submission of report within a month, Justice Kohli also authorised the investigating officer to obtain the original record from the court, if required.

Pursuant to counselling by Kurukshetra University, 63 students took admission in the B.Ed course in United College of Education, Kaithal, in 2008.

After a High Ccourt order, the college was to admit another 37, but admitted students beyond the capacity, taking the total to 200. Later, the KU authorities issued roll numbers to first 100 students, without analysing whether they were admitted on the basis of counselling.

The 100 students not been issued roll numbers approached the High Court. Holding the university decision as justified, the High Court dismissed their petition. Subsequently, 13 other petitioners admitted to the course in the first batch of 63 students but denied roll numbers, approached the court with the same prayer.

Replying to the petition, the university pointed out that at least two petitioners were there in the earlier petition also.

But the students denied having filed any petition earlier. Taking up the matter, Justice Kohli ordered a probe.

Jhajjar, May 3
The Juvenile Justice Board, Jhajjar, has ordered a minor boy to carry out plantation in the local forest office for the next two years as punishment after holding him guilty of sodomising a four-and-a-half-year-old child.

The board also ordered him to deposit a surety and personal bond of Rs 50,000. The bond amount will be forfeited if he fails to act according to the sentence.

As per the verdict pronounced by principal judge of the board Harish Gupta, the punishment period will start from May 20 and the convict will have to undergo punishment under the supervision of the district forest officer (DFO). The DFO will have to inform the court in case the convict does not come to the office.

A complaint was lodged by Bhupinder Singh with the Sadar police station, Jhajjar, on January 11, 2005, wherein he had stated that his nephew, Deepanshu, was sodomised by a neighbouring minor boy, Sumit, at his residence when no other family member was present.

Acting on the complaint, the police had got Deepanshu’s medical examination done from a hospital and the test report confirmed that the kid was sodomised. Since then, the case had been pending before the Juvenile Justice Board, which gave the minor a rare punishment.

Nearly 20 days ago, the board had pronounced a similar judgment in which a minor boy held guilty of attempting to rape a four-year-old girl had been told to serve water at the Jhajjar bus stand for one year as punishment. The police had registered a case of attempt to rape against the boy, Rishu, a resident of Jhajjar, on March 7, 2002, on the complaint of the victim’s grandmother. The boy was also directed to deposit a security of Rs 10,000 with the board.

Sirsa, May 3
Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh appeared before the CBI court situated in Ambala through video conferencing from the district courts here today.

The dera chief reached the video conferencing room at 8 am and remained in the room for over five hours. The court heard the evidences of the prosecution in the Ram Chander Chhatarpati murder case.

The cavalcade of the dera chief reached the court premises amidst heavy security arrangements. Hundreds of his followers had assembled outside the courts complex on the Barnala road and the route leading to the dera headquarters.

The dera followers remained there till the dera chief left for his residence after his appearance in the court.

The court recorded the evidence of a doctor, who attended to the slain journalist first, when he was rushed to the Sirsa general hospital in seriously injured condition after assailants shot at him outside his residence.

The next date of hearing in the case is May 10.

Fatehabad, May 3
A 45-year-old woman from Bihar was allegedly raped by six persons in the fields of Samain village here yesterday. The police has arrested three persons in this connection.

The woman had come to Samain with her husband on May 1 to free her daughter, who was allegedly held captive by a villager for the past some days.

SHO of Tohana Sadar police station Ganga Ram said the victim, her husband and their daughter had gone to Hardwar some days ago, where their daughter went astray.

She came in contact with Raju, a resident of Bithmada, who allegedly brought her to his village and later sold to Ishwar, a villager from Samain.

The girl’s parents came from Bihar after receiving a call from their daughter that she has been kept as captive in Samain village.

Ishwar claimed that he had purchased the girl from Raju and has married her. He asked the couple to accompany him to the village sarpanch to resolve the dispute.

However, he left them in the agriculture fields on the pretext that the sarpanch would come soon.

While the couple was waiting in the fields, six persons, identified as Mandeep, Satish, Ved Parkash, Rajbir, Baldev and Raju, who were consuming liquor there, raped the woman and snatched her belongings, including Rs 10,000 in cash.

The police has registered a case under Sections 376 and 34 of the IPC after getting the victim medically examined. Mandeep, Satish and Ved Parkash had been arrested and efforts were on to arrest the other three, the SHO said.

Rohtak, May 3
The Wildlife Department has placed under suspension three employees, including a wildlife inspector, for “dereliction of duty” in a case pertaining to the death of 10 deer in Meham subdivision.

The deer were reportedly mauled to death by a group of stray dogs, who entered the deer park in Meham on Saturday. An inquiry has also been ordered into the incident.

The deaths came to light yesterday morning when residents reported to the police that mangled bodies of some deer had been lying in and around the park, which had been turned into a special enclosure for the deer for the past several years. The place is located about 4 km from Meham town towards Hisar.

Sources said when the incident took place the keeper and the guard deployed there were reportedly asleep. The incident came to light the next morning. The staff then gathered the carcasses of deer and buried it in the courtyard of the park.

The suspended include wildlife inspector Rajender Singh, forest guard Charan Singh and keeper Randhir Singh. Only four of the deer lodged in the park have survived the attack.

Rewari, May 3
Irate residents held demonstrations at several places in the district today in protest against erratic water supply.

Irked by persistent disruption in the drinking water supply due to non-functional boosters, residents of various affected wards in Bawal town blocked traffic on the Bawal-Pranpura road today.

Women broke empty pitchers there in protest against the alleged apathy of the Public Health authorities.

The blockade, which lasted about three hours, was lifted following the intervention of Tehsildar Jitender Kumar, who assured that the boosters would be repaired and water supply restored within 24 hours.

Similarly, residents held a dharna at the waterworks at Mandhiya Khurd village, 20 km from Kosli, today against the supply of brackish water. They alleged that because of this their children were suffering from diarrhoea.

Sirsa, May 3
The working of anganwari centres in the district will now be monitored from the district headquarters as the authorities have decided to computerise all centres functioning in villages, where nutritious diet is provided to kids, adolescent girls, expectant and lactating mothers.

“The plan is to feed data, such as number of registered children, available facilities, learning and playing material and status of diet of the centres in computers. At present, there are over 96,000 children enrolled in 914 anganwari centres of the district,” Deputy Commissioner Yudhbir Singh Khyalia said.

He said the learning and playing material for children was being provided in these centres by the district administration. The diet money of children had also been raised from Rs 2.50 to Rs 3.75 per child to ensure that they get nutritious diet, he added.

He said as many as 430 more centres had been approved for the district and soon they would start functioning, adding, that in all new centres, one anganwari worker and helper would be appointed.

He said learning and playing material had been provided to 142 centres of the Chaupata block under the Backward Area Development Fund and the remaining centres would also be covered soon.

The district administration would spend a sum of Rs 3.20 crore for the purpose, he said.

Each centre would be equipped with learning and playing material at a cost of Rs 35,000, Khyalia added.

Chandigarh, May 3
The Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) of Kuldeep Bishnoi has gone hi-tech with the launching of two websites here recently.

The websites, www.hjcbl.com and www.kuldeepbishnoi.com, will be semi-interactive, on which any one can register his or her complaints, post enquiries, become a member of the party or even read biographies of party leaders.

Launching the websites, Bishnoi said the websites would be regularly updated with latest news about the HJC, its programmes, its leaders and its policies. He also announced the opening of his party’s office here in the MLA flat allotted to him. He said two more such offices would be opened in Karnal and Hisar or Rohtak for the convenience of party workers.

The party website opens with a message from its president, while his personal website has details about his interests and his family as well as his personal photographs. The HJC has also launched a toll free phone line, 1800-115511, which will be available 24x7. The phone line will enable anyone to leave suggestions and messages for Bishnoi. He also launched a 30-minute CD about the activities of his party, which will be shown all over the state.

Chandigarh, May 3
After the INLD, the Haryana Congress has also constituted a seven-member state-level coordination committee for the municipal elections in the state. The party is contesting these elections not on its symbol.

The committee will be headed by party president Phool Chand Mullana. Its other members will be party working president Kuldeep Sharma; former minister Birender Singh; MP Ram Prakash; MLA Venod Sharma; Chief Parliamentary Secretary Sharda Rathore and general secretary of the party Rajinder Singh Saini.

The party has also set up municipal-level coordination committees. All party MPs will be the members of the municipal-level committees falling within their respective constituencies. The other members of these committees will be district unit presidents concerned and block-unit presidents. A number of senior party leaders have also been nominated to these committees.

Mullana said these committees would decide to extend support to suitable candidates keeping in view the sentiments and aspirations of the respective municipal areas.