The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	HC rap for Punjab rights commission Says SHRC only a recommendatory institution Saurabh Malik Tribune News Service Chandigarh, December 19 Finding fault with an order of the Punjab State Human Rights Commission against a DSP and two other police officials, the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in a significant judgment, has ruled that the commission is only a recommendatory institution. It does not have the jurisdiction to reject defence version furnished by the police officers. The ruling came on a petition filed by DSP Balwinder Singh, Barjinder Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar Goel against the State of Punjab and other respondents. In the petition placed before the Bench of Justice MM Kumar and Justice Rajiv Narain Raina, challenge was thrown to the order dated November 12, 2009, passed by the Punjab State Human Rights Commission. In its order, the Commission had rejected the defence pleas of the three police officers and recommended to the State Government to initiate department action against them. Interim compensation of Rs 25,000 was also recommended to be handed over to Vishal Kumar, the victim of police harassment. Challenging the order, counsel for the petitioner submitted: “Once the commission decides that the defence raised by the three petitioners was rejected, this would certainly prejudice their rights before the regular courts of law where they may have to face criminal or civil proceedings.” The counsel added the rest of the order was recommendatory and there could not be “any possible objection”. After hearing the rival contentions, the Bench asserted that it was of the view that the submission made by the petitioner’s counsel with regard to the offending portion of the order deserves to be accepted. “Once the commission is found to be a recommendatory institution by the Division Bench of this court and the commission is only to act as a catalytic body, it would not have any jurisdiction to reject the defence version posed by the petitioner before the commission.” “If such a course is adopted, it would amount to adjudication of the rights of the parties and their case before the regular courts might be prejudiced…. The following portion of the order is set aside: The commission rejects the defence pleas of the three police officers. The writ petitions are partly allowed. However, rest of the recommendations would stand.” Cracking the whip n The commission had rejected the defence pleas of the three police officials in a case n It also recommended to the State Government to initiate departmental action against the trio n The High Court, however, ruled that the commission did not have the jurisdiction to reject defence version as furnished by the police officials n The ruling came on a petition filed by DSP Balwinder Singh, Barjinder Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar Goel against the State of Punjab and other respondents
	Board to grant affiliation, upgrade schools Rajmeet Singh Tribune News Service Mohali, December 19 With the Vidhan Sabha elections in sight, the Punjab Government has directed the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) to implement its five-month-old decision to grant affiliation or upgrade around 1,200 schools across the state. The approval would be granted subject to fulfillment of certain norms. To clear the backlog of applications that have been pending for the past many years, the Association of the PSEB Affiliated School had been knocking at the door of the State Government for the past many years. In July last year, the Education Minister had decided to grant permission for affiliation or upgradation, but the decision was not implemented due to certain reasons. Irritated over the issue, an association of affiliated schools had recently held a demonstration outside the office of the PSEB. To clear air on the issue, Dr Dalbir Singh Dhillon, PSEB Chairman, said that subject to fulfillment of the laid down norms that had been relaxed on certain parameters, the inspecting teams of the board would inspect all the schools in the next few weeks and schools would be accordingly granted affiliation. He said pressure tactics adopted by a group of affiliated schools to get affiliation, without paying any fee, was not acceptable to the authorities. "It involved financial loss to the board", he added. Dr Dhillon said that the Board was ready to grant more time to the schools for meeting the requirements of affiliation. He said that he had constituted a committee under the chairmanship of a retired session judge along with decentralisation of Board's various activities at the district-level. On the issue of about 3,500 private schools being granted associate status at a nominal fee and on the other hand the affiliated schools pay heavy fee and follow strict norms, the Chairman said they were two separate categories of schools. Once the Right to Education (RTE) Act was implemented, all the schools could be categorised into one class and follow same set of rules. Rajinder Sharma, President of the Association of Punjab School Education Board, said decision of the government to affiliate or up grade such schools was pending since the past four months. " We have fighting on the issue since 2007. On the pattern of government schools, the affiliated schools had been demanding affiliation", he said. To go with Semester system Dr Dalbir Singh Dhillon, Chairman, PSEB, said the semester system would continue as it was appreciated at various forums. On being asked about the recommendations of the Expert Committee on Education Policy 2025, the Chairman said he would convince the State Government to continue with the semester system.
	No more fund collection till polls are over: Nadda Tribune News Service Jalandhar, December 19 Having faced much embarrassment for giving a huge target to party leaders for collecting election funds a fortnight back, national general secretary of the BJP JP Nadda said no such exercise would be conducted in the state at least till the polls are over. Nadda was in the city to overview the preparations for the national-level office-bearers meeting to be held on December 23, followed by the Jan Vishwas Maha rally to be held on December 24. During an interaction with the media, he said, “The party does not need more funds for the rallies and the elections. We are in a comfortable position to carry on with the existing kitty”. When asked if the declaration was a reaction after the matter was raked up by the Election Commission of India, he said, “I am not even aware of that.” Nadda said as many as 70 national-level office-bearers of the party would be in the city to attend the meeting to discuss elections to be held in three states, including Punjab, Uttranchal and Uttar Pradesh. He said he would be presenting a report on the strengths and weaknesses of the party in Punjab, which would be discussed and deliberated upon by the national leaders. Asked about any decision on the seat-sharing with the SAD, he said the issue regarding one or two seats was still being discussed within party and is yet to be discussed with the Akali leadership. On the issue of announcement of candidature for the 23 seats, he said, “The declaration would be done by the year end.” He said, “There should be just five to six sitting MLAs. Majority of the remaining would be senior leaders of the state who have not contested earlier.” Nadda said he hoped that there would be a gathering of over 1 lakh people at the rally. The national-level speakers would include Nitin Gadkari, LK Advani, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Captain Abhimanyu and Navjot Sidhu.
	Install CCTV cameras within 15 days: PPCB to industries Umesh Dewan Tribune News Service Patiala, December 19 The Punjab Pollution Control Board has decided to install CCTV cameras, along with DVR (digital video recorder), in all highly polluting industries to monitor regular operation of their pollution control devices, both for checking air and water pollution levels. Confirming this, PPCB Chairman KS Pannu said that the industries, which would be covered in the first phase, include distilleries, pharmaceuticals/bulk drug manufacturers, paper mills, sugar mills, meat plants and the Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) for electroplating industries at Ludhiana and for the leather complex at Jalandhar. Pannu said that all these industries had been directed to get these cameras installed inside the industry premises at prominent locations like bio-reactor to monitor regular operation of aerators, outflow channel/electro magnetic flow meters, chemical dozing tanks, stacks for checking the release of smoke and any other specific site as per requirement. "Though, it is duty of all the industrial units to install and regularly operate the pollution control devices in order to bring down the pollution level within the prescribed limits, but they are not regularly operating them, due to which the purpose of pollution control gets defeated", he said. Pannu said that with the installation of the online CCTV cameras, with backup recording of 60 days, the Board would monitor these polluting industries through Internet. "The right of monitoring through CCTVs has also been given to the concerned Assistant Environmental Engineers, Environmental Engineer, Senior Environmental Engineers and Chief Environmental Engineer", he said. Pannu also said that the industries' owners had been directed to install the CCTV cameras and DVR at their own cost, which would be around Rs 40,000. "The industrial units have been directed that CCTV/DVR should be installed within next 15 days for making the connectivity to the central server of the Board for continuous monitoring at any moment of time", he said, while adding that this step would help in bringing down the pollution level drastically. to control pollution n Industries to be covered in the first phase include distilleries, pharmaceuticals/bulk drug manufacturers, paper mills, sugar mills, meat plants and the Common Effluent Treatment Plant for electroplating industries in Ludhiana and the leather complex in Jalandhar n With backup recording of 60 days, the Board would monitor these polluting industries through Internet n The right of monitoring through CCTVs has also been given to the Assistant Environmental Engineers, Environmental Engineer, Senior Environmental Engineers and Chief Environmental Engineer
	Inter-state fake degree racket busted Aman Sood/TNS Patiala, December 19 Acting on a tip-off from an Embassy in New Delhi pertaining to the fake educational certificates being used to procure a visa, the city police has busted an inter-state gang and arrested an MBA student, who earlier worked for a MNC, on the charges of preparing fake certificates. The Model Town police started investigations in this regard and found that the gang members were also operating from Haryana and distributing certificates to anyone in the country in lieu of money. The police said the city police laid a trap and after getting vital details, rounded up a person in a late evening raid. "The accused had prepared a certificate for a student who was caught by the Singapore Embassy while trying to get a visa on fake documents and later it was established that the student got those documents from a Patiala-based person", claimed ASI Guriqbal Singh. The accused has been identified as an MBA student from a private university. The police had recovered a computer, scanner and some more certificates from his custody. Sources, however, confirmed that the gang members used to charge between Rs 10,000 to 20,000 per certificate. "Certain stamps used in the fraud have also been recovered and a computer center in Gurbax Colony has also been sealed", they said.
	State YC chief Vikramjit vies for Adampur ticket Jalandhar, December 19 Having managed a landslide victory in the recent Punjab Youth Congress poll, Vikramjit Singh Chaudhary’s prospect of getting a ticket for the Adampur Assembly constituency seem to have become all the more bright. Vikramjit got 11,108 out of 31,232 votes. While there were 19 candidates in the fray, his immediate candidate Sukhpal Singh Bhullar got 4,867 votes. The 34-year-old said his victory was also a win for the Capt Amarinder camp in the party. He said the maximum votes came from youth workers from the Doaba belt. Vikram is the grandson of former Punjab minister Late Master Gurbanta Singh, son of former minister Chaudhary Santokh Singh and nephew of former local bodies minister Ch Jagjit Singh. — TNS
	Poet Ajaib Kamal remembered Tribune News Service Hoshiarpur, December 19 Poets from Punjab and its surrounding states paid tributes to the legendary Punjabi poet and writer, Ajaib Kamal, at a Kavi Darbar organised at his native village, Dandian, in Mahilpur near here on Sunday. The poets, including Darshan Buttar, Navtej Ghardiwala, Jasbir Singh, Dr Jagtar Singh, Baljinder Mann, Preet Neetpur, Raj Sandhu, Mohan artist, Resham Chitarkar, Vijay Bhatti, Sohan Singh Suni, Sukhdev Nadalon, Surinder Ghardiwala and Pardeep Mann, participated in the darbar. Anup Singh Minhas, a retired senior police officer, was also present there, said a close family friend, Hargurjodh Singh. Kamal has written and published 50 books on novels, poetry, ghazals, kav natak, maha kav. He has also written five books in English. The Punjabi literary scholars said Ajaib Kamal was one of the three leading poets who started Paryogbad movement (experimental movement) in the Punjabi literature in 1962. His last three books on Paryogbad were Te Uston Aganh (criticism); Tikde Tukde Suraj (ghazal) and Apna Apna Aksh (poetry) that were published by Lok Geet Parkashan, Chandigarh. Noted Punjabi poet from Nabha, Darshan Buttar, was honoured with the first Ajaib Kamal Award (Rs 11,000) for his contribution to Punjabi literature during the event.