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Wednesday,
May 1, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Big scam
unearthed in HFC Notice to CBI in
arms licence case Ruchika
molestation case: CBI files reply Chautala misleading farmers: Hooda |
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Wakf board to launch welfare
schemes Credit
policy insufficient, says economist Encroachments
to be removed: DC Civil hospital sans essential services Dalit
leaders flay Mayawati’s ‘opportunism’ Haryana
may start ‘shram sahayata’ scheme HIGH COURT 
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Big scam unearthed in HFC Chandigarh, April 30 The bureau has recommended the registration of cases under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC and Section 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the erring personnel. Besides, the bureau has also recommended departmental action under Rule 8 of the All-India Services (Discipline and Appeals) Rules, 1969, against the then Managing Director of the HFC, Mr Ajit Mohan Sharan, IAS, now posted in Delhi on deputation with the Government of India. The bureau has recommended the recovery of the loss from the beneficiary firms and shareholders. Following the bureau’s recommendation, a case was registered at Ambala on April 25 and further investigation was stated to be in progress. According to a spokesman of the bureau, a loss of Rs 11.30 crore was found to have been caused under the merchant banking scheme of the HFC in 1994-96, Rs 38.69 crore under the leasing scheme in 1993-96, Rs 5.82 crore under the sub-leasing scheme in 1995 and Rs 41.25 crore in the sanctioning and payment of loans in the 1994-96 period. The spokesman added that irregularities were also found to have been committed in connection with public issues during 1995. He said that money was released on the basis of forged documents without proper verification. Besides, full amounts were released instead of instalments to the firms without the verification of documents and guarantees of the firms. He alleged that these losses had occurred due to the misdeeds of the officials concerned of the HFC in connivance with the beneficiary firms. Sources said that cases had been registered at Ambala against six HFC officials. They were Mr U.S. Chadda, Former Executive Director, Mr A. Vasishth, Additional General Manager, Mr Anil Lekhi, Assistant General Manager, Mr P.C. Gupta, AGM, Ms Manisha Gupta, Manager, and Mr Manoj Arora, Manager. Departmental action against these officials was initiated earlier, the sources added. |
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Notice to CBI in
arms licence case Ambala, April 30 The Punjab and Haryana High Court granted anticipatory bail to Powaria on April 4 to the satisfaction of the arresting officer for one month within which the applicant will be free to apply to the trial court for the regular bail. Accordingly, Powaria applied for regular bail in the court of Dr Prasoon. The Judge has issued the notice to the CBI for May 2. According to the prosecution, between 1994 and 1998 a criminal conspiracy was allegedly hatched by R. N. Sharma, owner of a gun shop in New Delhi, along with officials of the ADM office, Jammu, and some unknown persons of Jammu and New Delhi with ulterior motive to facilitate the procurement of arms licence from Jammu in the assumed name to beneficiaries. Thereafter, Sharma further conspired with officials of the SDM, Gurgaon, in order to further reissue the licences so procured from the ADM office, Jammu. Mr Bansal stated in the application that the applicant was posted as SDM, Gurgaon, from February 2, 1997, to May 5, 1999. The applicant after submitting the final report by the official concerned put his initials on the licence papers. He stated in the application that it were the subordinate officials who intentionally submitted the fake report before the applicant and wrongfully verified the particulars with ulterior motive. The counsel of Powaria stated that the applicant was overburdened as he was having the additional charge of Land Acquisition Collector; Secretary, Regional Transport Authority; President, Municipal Council, Gurgaon; Chief Executive Officer of Shitla Mata Shrine Board; and Administrator, Gurgaon, Sohna and Patodi grain markets. That is why the applicant was supposed to depend upon his subordinates. The application stated that the District Magistrate, Gurgaon, had marked all such licences, which were reissued by the applicant, as all such applications were moved before the District Magistrate for the renewal. The applicant could not verify the contents of each and every application and the clerk concerned put the same before the applicant for signature. The applicant has already joined the investigation a number of times and thoroughly interrogated by the CBI. So Mr Bansal requested the court to admit the bail till the decision of the case. |
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Ruchika molestation
case: CBI files reply Ambala, April 30 The Special Magistrate for CBI cases in Haryana, Mr J.S. Dhanjal, adjourned the case till May 13 for arguments. The CBI filed the reply to the application moved by Rathore under Section 311 of the CrPC praying that disputed signatures be sent to the office of the Director, Forensic Science Laboratory, (FSL), and that the issuance of notification under Section 251 of the CrPC be deferred till the report comes from the laboratory. The reply filed by the CBI states that the court on the basis of the charge-sheet submitted by the CBI has taken the cognisance of the offence punishable under Section 354 of the IPC. Since the case for the offence under Section 354 of the IPC is a summons case, therefore, the procedure for trial as envisaged under Chapter XX of the CrPC commencing from Section 251 to 259 would be applicable. The accused is not even entitled to adduce any evidence or file any document at the stage of 251 of the CrPC. Under such circumstances when the accused is not entitled to file documents in support of his case, he cannot request the court to send the signatures of Ruchika on two different documents for comparison. The prayer of the accused is not tenable for adjudication of the application under Section 258 of the CrPC. It is not all required to send the signatures for comparison, the application adds. “The accused has moved the application for sending the signature of Ruchika on two different sets of documents to the Director of the laboratory for finding out the authenticity of the signatures of
Ruchika. By no stretch of imagination, the provisions of Section 311 of the CrPC are applicable to the case in hand. The accused in the present application has prayed the court to send the disputed signatures to the office of the Director, but he has not spelt out as to what for the same are to be sent to the said office. On this point alone the application is liable to be dismissed,” the application points out. Praying for dismissal of the present application, the CBI reply states: “Even assuming that the accused wants the same to be sent to the office of Director,
FSL, for comparison and opinion, it would amount to creation of non-existent evidence which had never been the purpose of Section 311 of the
CrPC. The accused in his application has not spelt out as to how and why the signatures on the said documents are necessary to be sent to the office of the Director of
FSL. This application is based on surmises and conjectures. The application of the accused is not maintainable under law.” |
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Chautala
misleading farmers: Hooda Chandigarh, April 30 “Mr Chautala is misleading the farmers. What is prompting him to make such appeals is his desire to run away from the cumbersome process of procurement of rice and wheat by the official agencies”, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, HPCC chief, told TNS here today. Mr Hooda’s charge, however, was contested by officials of the Horticulture Department of the Haryana Government. They pointed out that from only 50 hectares under flower cultivation in 1990, the area has increased to over 3,200 hectares in 2002. The farmers primarily grew roses, tuberoses, marigolds and gladioluses, the horticulture officials said, adding that though most of the flowers produced in Haryana were sold in Delhi, the demand for flower also existed in towns in Haryana. “Most of the flower cultivation in Haryana is in areas near Delhi such as Gurgaon, Faridabad, Rewari, Rohtak, Roopnagar
(Jhajjar), Yamunanagar, etc”, they said and added that there was a proposal to have a wholesale market for flowers to be set up by HAFED at Gurgaon. Moreover, not only does a farmer profit more by selling flowers than rice or wheat, flower cultivation also generates more employment when compared to the traditional crops. “ While cereal production requires 40 to 60
mandays, the cultivation of flower needs over 200 mandays”. The requirement of water for flower cultivation is also much less as compared to rice or wheat”, the officials said. They added that the state government provided support to flower producers by supplying them with seeds, pesticides, fertilisers as well as by arranging free training for farmers at Gharaunda and Karnal. Mr Hooda, however, claims that there is a conspiracy behind Mr Chautala’s call to the farmers to grow flowers. “He is preparing an escape route for himself in case the Centre refuses to participate in the procurement of rice and wheat in near the future”, he alleged.
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Wakf board to launch welfare
schemes Ambala, April 30 Mr Naseem Ahmed Vice-Chancellor, Aligarh Muslim University, was the chief guest. Dr Haque said efforts were on to bring back the former glory of the mosque that was handed over to them in Hargobindpur, near Batala. He said the repair work would be carried out with the assistance from UNESCO. He stated that the foundation stone of the building of Hazrat Halima Women Charitable Hospital costing Rs 2 crore had been laid in Malerkotla and the work was being carried out by the Central Public Works Department. He stressed that the board had earned more than Rs 16 crore during the year and was poised to launch education and welfare schemes of Rs 3.09 crore for the benefit of the members belonging to the minority community and backward classes in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. He urged the NGOs working for weaker sections of the society to come forward and work in tandem with the board in the areas of education, health and development. The Chief Executive Officer of the board Mr Ahklaq Ahmad Khan, said during the year 2001-02, the board had spent Rs 4.75 crore on various social welfare, education and development schemes. He added that during the year, it provided merit-cum-means scholarship to 129 students and pension to 2,000 widows and
destitutes. Scholarships were also being provided to the wards of Imams for getting them enrolled in the government recognised schools. |
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Credit policy insufficient, says economist Kurukshetra, April 30 He said the immediate need of the banking industry was to create faith and confidence among the people. In view of excess liquidity in the banking sector, the effective date of reducing the cash reserve ratio
(CRR) June 15, 2002, was not correct. The move would affect the trust of the small depositors. He called upon the banking industry to promote credit delivery. He said for faster recovery in the industrial sector, we have to think about zero interest rates on the pattern of the Bank of Japan. He added that it needed to be noted carefully that the interest policy for both the creditors and depositors was a potent instrument of economic management. It needs to be observed carefully whether the liberalisation of the monetary policy in terms of prime lending rate
(PLR) will reform the financial sector or it will create unhealthy competition. It needs to be noted that the bank credit is required by small and medium industries, which calls for the necessary directive from the RBI to
commercial banks to implement the recommendations of the Nayak Committee and the Kapur Committee. |
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Encroachments
to be removed: DC Hisar, April 30 She was addressing her first press conference after assuming the charge of the Deputy Commissioner of the district. Ms Umashankar said that she had directed all department heads in the district to hear public complaints and try to sort those at the earliest. She said the district administration had ensured smooth procurement of wheat in all the grain markets of the district. There was a target of procuring 4.75 lakh metric tonne this year and government agencies had already met 60 per cent of the target. She also asked farmers to bring wheat to mandis after cleaning it properly. There was no problem of storage. Additional space had been created in all grain markets of the area. She called upon people to take benefit from the recently announced power dues waiver scheme. She said that the authorities would issue no-dues certificate on the spot to defaulters paying 25 per cent of their arrears. The DHBVN would hold special camps in villages for this purpose. The amount realised from the defaulters would be spent on the development of the same village. She said Rs 30 crore were due from power consumers in the district. Ms Umashankar said that she had set up a flying squad to check copying in examinations as she had received many complaints of mass copying in the ongoing open board examinations. The squad had raided many examination centres. |
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Civil hospital sans essential services Kalka, April 30 In case of emergency the patient is referred to Chandigarh or Panchkula hospitals. The ambulance that was earlier available in the hospital had met with an accident and was sent for repairs. Though around five months have lapsed, the ambulance has not been put back into service. The absence of eye and heart specialists in the hospital has resulted in a lot of inconvenience to the local population. People of the area have demanded that all vacant posts be immediately filled and a blood bank be opened. Mr Bansal has further alleged that emergency services in the Pinjore hospital have not been provided since 1996. |
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Dalit leaders flay Mayawati’s ‘opportunism’ Chandigarh, April 30 In a statement issued here today, Mr Sarwan and Mr Karamvir Singh said while Mr Ram Vilas Paswan had emerged as a “hero of the dalit community” by stepping down from the Central Government in protest against the violence in Gujarat, Ms Mayawati had only exposed her opportunism by agreeing to become the Chief Minister of UP with the support of the BJP. |
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Haryana
may
start ‘shram sahayata’ scheme Chandigarh, April 30 The message added that the minimum wages of labourers had been raised to Rs 2133.60 per month in the state. Also, an amendment had been made to the Punjab Shop and Commercial Establishments Act, 1965, as a result of which women labourers could work in any shift of their choice. Another amendment had been made to the Punjab Labour Welfare Fund Act, 1965, to provide social and financial security to industrial labourers and their dependents. |
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COURT Chandigarh, April 30 In
his petition, Mr Harikesh Malik of Khurana village in Kaithal district
had earlier contended that a false case was registered after farmers
holding a peaceful demonstration on December 21 last year were ordered
to be beaten up by the police before Haryana’s Chief Minister was to
pass through the area. He had added that the government was not paying
much heed to their demands and as such they were holding a peaceful
demonstration. |
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Interviews put off Chandigarh, April 30 While stating this here today, a spokesman of the HSSC said that the fresh dates would be notified later. |
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