Jalandhar, April 18
Coming as a major jolt for the residents of Basti Adda Road, a special leave petition (SLP) filed by them in the Supreme Court (SC) against acquisition of their land for widening of road towards the old jail site has been dismissed.

Dismissing their plea, the double Bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice Kurian Joseph has granted liberty to the six petitioners to make a representation to the state government and PIDB for being accommodated in the scheme proposed in the land vacated by the Central Jail. The representation is to be disposed of within three months.

The court has further clarified, "In case the representation is allowed, no reasons need to be given. However, if the representation is rejected, the authorities shall cite reasons for the same. In case the petitioners are aggrieved by the rejection of the representation, it would be open for them to challenge the same in an appropriate forum."

In their petition, eye specialist Dr Manvinder Pal Singh Bhatia, property dealer Rajiv Malhotra, Balkar Singh, Balwinder Kumar, Neelam Rani and Anita Arora had said the area of the land acquired and area of balance land left with each petitioner had been wrongly stated. They had alleged that the government had falsely shown the area left with them after part acquisition of their properties to be above 80 per cent.

In support of their argument, they had placed on record a reply to an application by them under the RTI with the PWD in which it had been stated that the area left with Dr Bhatia was 35.9 per cent, Malhotra 39.7 per cent, Balkar Singh 46 per cent, Balwinder Kumar 10.3 per cent and Anita Arora 9 per cent.

They had also raised an issue that there are at least five persons whose lands had not been acquired, but had been awarded compensation. They had cited this as a reason as to why their share was being truncated. Further, the petitioners had even put on record an agreement made with them by PUDA officials, which mentioned, "The entire valuable land will be acquired at commercial rates and one standard size SCO will be allotted at old Central Jail site to those from whom land is being acquired. While an area of 85 sq yard will be given free of cost, they will have to pay the reserve price for the remaining land."

The complainants had also produced the details of the Optimum Utilisation of Vacant Government Lands Scheme, which provides for rehabilitation of displaced persons whose lands have been acquired by the government. They had said they had been using the acquired land for self-occupation to earn livelihood by running shops and medical clinic and after acquisition of the land by the government the balance area of land was not sufficient to run their clinics and shops, which had caused grave prejudice and irreparable loss to them.

Jalandhar, April 18
Finally, the Municipal Corporation (MC) has taken a number of steps to streamline streetlight system.

A five-member committee, headed by Senior Deputy Mayor Kamaljit Singh Bhatia, has not only directed the streetlight contractors to immediately implement various clauses including at the time of contract, but also formed monitoring committees for keeping an eye on the working of contractors.

Talking to The Tribune, Kamaljit Singh Bhatia said the streetlight contractors had been directed to ask their electricians to wears uniform as per one of the contract clauses.

Besides, the contractors had also been asked to provide identity cards to the electricians, he said, adding that there were reports that some fake electricians used to steal streetlight sets, so it would prevent such types of incidents.

Bhatia said the contractors had also been directed to put seven information boards in each of the seven zones of the MC. Each board would carry name of the contractor, light man, patrol man and their telephone numbers, complaint number of the MC and telephone numbers of area councillor, Senior Deputy Mayor and Mayor for early disposal of complaints pertaining to streetlights.

The Senior Deputy Mayor along with other four members of the team - Deputy Mayor Arvinder Kaur Oberoi, Leader of Opposition Jagdish Raj Raja, BJP councillors Ram Gopal Pethewala and Bhagwant Prabhakar - made several visits to city areas, including some surprise visits, and held a number of meetings before finalising the steps for streamlining the streetlight system.

Meanwhile, Bhatia stated seven monitoring committees (each for one of the seven MC zones) had also been constituted for keeping an eye on the functioning of streetlight contractors. Councillors from all the political parties had been included in the monitoring committees, which would hold their meeting at least once in a month, he added.

Jalandhar, April 18
Health services have virtually crippled at the Punjab Institute of Medical Science (PIMS), a premier healthcare institution of the region, with strike by the paramedical staff entering the 19th day here today.

Holding banners and placards in their hands, the protesters hold a rally and raised slogans against the management. The employees went on strike on April 1 against the non-payment of salaries by the PIMS management.

The strike by the paramedical staff has also paralysed the functioning of the hospital as there are no patients and the doctors are left with no work. Moreover, the businesses of cafeteria owner and other vendors on the PIMS premises have been adversely affected.

GK Bali, a senior manager of PIMS, on Tuesday held a meeting with the striking staff, owner of the cafeteria, daily wage safai workers and vendors and heard their grievances.

He also told the PIMS management that the issues had brought the functioning of the institute to a standstill and requested the authorities to resolve the issue fast.

Jalandhar, April 18
The office of the District Education Officer (Secondary) is in trouble for refusing to provide information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to some activists.

The DEO office has court hearings piled up against it, it has been learnt.

As the new session started on April 1, the DEO (secondary) had six court hearings this month so far related to alleged denial of information under the RTI Act.

After hearings in the District Consumer Court on April 1, 3 and April 5, the DEO (S) had a hearing in the court of the State Information Commission on Wednesday after she was issued a show-cause notice. The hearings on April 18, 22 and April 26 are in the Consumer Court.

All the said hearings are related to the denial of information to activists Raksha Rani and Kanwaljit Singh.

On additional information sought by the activists, many documents were cited as “missing or unavailable" at the respective schools by the DEO’s office in its reply.

The hearings were conducted on the basis of allegations by RTI activist Raksha Rani that incomplete proofs of the basis of various enquiry reports were provided to her by district education officials or principals.

The inquiries were carried out to look into complaints made against some local school teachers by the principal of a government school.

Anil Kumar, Raksha Rani’s husband, said it was a cause of concern that information had been denied by the DEO’s office in cases where documents sought were reportedly termed as “missing or unavailable” at various schools including Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Nakodar, and Government Senior Secondary School, Bhullar.

In these cases, documents regarding the qualification certificates of a teacher and estimated income tax returns of a principal were made unavailable.

A case was also registered against Anil Kumar for allegedly stealing records from a government school at Khiwa.

Interestingly, he himself had sought in an RTI query earlier in about the school. Kumar termed the case as false and requested a probe into the matter.

DEO (S) Neelam Kumari said, “We are regularly appearing for the hearings and all the information we have been asked for is being duly provided.”

“The said information was not available with the schools and hence we were not able to provide it,” she said.

Jalandhar, April 18
Over 300 experts from the region will participate in “Jasicon-2013”, a mid-term continuing medical education (CME) programme to be held at Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) on Sunday.

A delegation of three general surgeons from Pakistan will also take part in the event. National and international faculty with vast experience in surgery will share their experiences during the programme.

Dr Abdul Majid Chaudhary, principal, Medical College, Lahore, will deliver a lecture on Indo-Pak oration while discussion on “Post-operative deaths -doctors’ viewpoint” would be the second important aspect of the CME, said Dr Charanjiv Singh, secretary, Northern Chapter of ASI.

Dr Rajneesh Kumar, president of the Jalandhar chapter of ASI, said over 300 delegates from Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Himachal Pradesh will attend the CME that would be inaugurated by Dr SS Gill, vice-chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences.

Dr PS Bakshi, president of the Northern chapter of ASI, said five doctors would be honoured for their excellent services in the health sector.

Jalandhar, April 18
About 250 persons were examined during a free medical check-up camp organised by the district Health Department at Kabir temple located in the Basti Bawa Khel area yesterday.

Jalandhar Mayor Sunil Jyoti inaugurated the camp while Civil Surgeon Dr RL Bassan asked the gathering to maintain hygiene. He also asked the general public to take preventive measure to avoid breeding of mosquitoes to get rid of vector-borne diseases.

The health officials also educated women about various schemes like Mata Kaushalya Scheme, Janani Suraksha Yojna, National Health Insurance Scheme, Punjab Nirogagi Scheme, CM Cancer Fund and others introduced by the Union Health Ministry and the state Health Department.

They also briefed about the facilities and schemes introduced by the government for pregnant women. Medicines were distributed among the patients free of cost.

Jalandhar, April 18
In the wake of retired employees of government aided schools finally getting pension, which they had been awaiting for the past 10 years, the members of the Punjab State Recognised Aided Schools' Pensioners Cell, will hold a "success" meet at Mandi Fentonganj Senior Secondary School here on April 21.

Speaking on the issue, Bhupendra Sharma, state press secretary of the cell, said in the upcoming sammelan former state president of the teachers' union Sher Singh would participate.

State president Gurcharan Singh Chahal, general secretary NN Saini, adviser Manohar Lal Chopra, cashier Kulwant Singh, Dr Gurmeet Singh, KK Joshi and other members would also be present.

Devoid of pension since June 1, 2003, the aided school pensioners had languished for many years and their pension was started again only on September, 2012.

Students of Government High School Patara today visited the Pushpa Gujral Science City under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan. The students were accompanied by school headmaster Sanjeewan Singh Dadwal.

Director General of School Education (DGSE) Kahan Singh Pannu had recently given instructions to conduct such study tours from time to time.

Jalandhar, April 18
The city police has arrested three more persons in the Rs 98.77 lakh Surya Enclave Extension land compensation scam.

The three arrested are patwari Sukhdev Singh, his brother-in-law Kulwant Singh of Phagwara and another accomplice Ravi Kumar of Bilga, who syphoned off the amount for a property business along with the main accused Sanjeev Kumar, who was held yesterday.

All four have been booked under Sections 420, 465, 467, 471 and 120-B of the IPC. The SHO, New Baradari police station, said a five-day police remand had been granted by the court to investigate further what all kind of documents, including fake ID card, they were forging and through whom.

Who is behind fake ID card racket?

This is the second case in the recent past wherein crime has been committed on the basis of fake voter ID cards. Last week, DCP Sarabjit Singh and ADCP (Crime) Harpreet Singh Mander had held a gang with the recovery of over 300 fake voter ID cards. The administrators and the police opine that since the cards are prepared using a simple printing paper, they can easily be faked.

Those into the racket have also been using the shiny holograms and printing a unique serial number on it. While the administrative officials have the means to authenticate the voter ID card, can even check the unique number on it online through ceopunjab.com website and even send copies of the card to the election office for a random check, but such practices are not being followed.

The staff in the election tehsildar office said they were getting two to five queries on suspicious election ID card every month from embassies. "We then cross-check the card authenticity from our database and report accordingly. Recently, there was a woman who had fudged a card changing her picture and keeping all details same while applying for immigration to Australia. On our report, she got nabbed," an election kanungo revealed.

Kapurthala, April 18
While the Punjab Police succeeded in nabbing two of the four accused, NRI Tarwinder Singh and Pushpinder Singh, a few days after the murder of ASI Gurdev Singh on the national highway in Phagwara, falling under Kapurthala district, on March 31, two other accused Palwinder Singh, alias Pinda, and Rajinder Singh, alias Mintoo, are still absconding.

Though the police of Kapurthala district and surrounding areas, especially that of Jalandhar rural district, is doing every possible effort to nab the absconding accused, yet they are still at large.

Expressing hope that the absconding accused will soon be put behind bars, Kapurthala SSP Inderbir Singh said, “The police is leaving no stone unturned to nab them. The police is conducting raids on their possible hideouts.”

In reply to a question about their possibility of leaving India to evade arrest, the SSP said the police had already taken adequate steps, including issuing look-out notices from them, to prevent them from leaving the country from any airport. The police usually followed this practice in cases where it feared that the accused could leave the country to evade their arrest.

Meanwhile, police sources said photos of the absconding accused had already been provided to all patrol parties to nab them. Further, important information regarding their possible whereabouts had also been collected on the interrogation of the arrested accused, NRI Tarwinder Singh and Pushpinder Singh.

The sources said the police failed to recover the Verna car used by the accused for escaping after gunning down the ASI.

A first information report (FIR) number 38 was registered under Sections 302, 307, 392 and 34 of the IPC and Section 25 of the Arms Act at the Sadar police station in Phagwara on head constable Balkar’s statement in this connection.