The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

EDUCATION

School building awaits a VIP
Nishikant Dwivedi

Mullanpur-Garibdas, May 15
A UK-based NRI, Mr Nathu Ram Puri, had dreamt of providing a school to the children of this area where he once lived. After spending Rs 1 crore on a magnificent school building, he is awaiting its inauguration by a VIP. A request to the Punjab Chief Minister to inaugurate the building was made in March, 2002 but Puri Development Trust is yet to receive any official communication in this regard from the Chief Minister’s office.

The cost was funded by Puri Foundation, a charitable trust, and the construction work was completed last year. The trust proposed to hand it over to the government authorities. Mr Puri had to wait for quite a few months to get the sanction from the Punjab Government for changing the name of the school to Shree M.L. Puri Senior Secondary Government School. The building spreads over 20,000 sq ft and can accommodate over 600 children. The land for the building was given by the village panchayat.

A part of the school building housing the Government Senior Secondary School for Boys was declared unsafe sometime back. Last month, the village panchayat took an initiative and shifted the school to the new building. According to Mr Dewan Singh, sarpanch: ‘‘After the repair of the old school building of the secondary school gets over, Government Girls High School of the village will be shifted there’’. The building housing the girls’ school is very small and congested.

Today the students of Government Senior Secondary School attend their classes in the new and spacious building. ‘‘But the school building should be formally inaugurated’’, says Mr D.D. Puri, President, Puri Development Trust. ‘‘I have come to know that the Chief Minister’s office has sent the file requesting inauguration of the building by the CM to the Punjab Education Minister’’, claimed Mr D.D. Puri.

Mr Nathu Ram Puri would come to the village on the day of inauguration of the school, informed Mr D.D. Puri, who hopes that the Punjab Chief Minister would soon be coming to the village for inauguration.

Poor result: Forty Two students out of the total 62 of the Government Senior Secondary School for Boys in the village, who had appeared in Class VIII examination conducted by the Punjab School Education Board, have failed to clear the exams. On the contrary, all the girls baning one of Government Girls High School of the village have passed the exams.

City to have law school soon
Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, May 15
The Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana has decided to open a law school in Chandigarh. The first of its kind in the country, this school, with a strength of 35,000 advocates will work to strengthen moral standards of law, apart from catering to the academic part.

Slated to be open to all advocates not only from India but also from SAARC countries, the school will be fully equipped to offer legal database to its students. The entire course will span five years. Talking to Chandigarh Tribune after declaring the decision to open the school, Mr Adish. C Aggarwala, Vice-President of Bar Council of India, said: “The Bar Council has decided to set up the school in the Law Bhavan in Sector 37. It will be inaugurated by the Law Minister in July”.

He said many law colleges functioning in different parts of India are not up to the mark. Therefore, there was urgent need to organise seminars and set-up law school where the students can get proper education.

Mr Aggarwal added that the council was serious about maintaining the dignity of the legal profession, therefore, the council had suspended 145 advocates on grounds of professional misconduct. There was an urgent need to facilitate exclusive entry of serious students into the profession. “The BCI has been making efforts to educate the legal fraternity by organising seminars,” he said.

A member of the Punjab and Haryana Bar Council, Mr Ram Avtar Gupta, said in view of the poor infrastructure and faculty the Bar Council had closed 257 law colleges in the country.

The Chairman of the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana, Mr Anmol Rattan Sidhu, said the Administration had already allotted land to the council in Sector 37.

Mr Sidhu added that the school would have all modern facilities.

Seminar on ‘Dot Net Platform’
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 15
As many as 50 entrepreneurs of various information technology (IT) companies participated in an advanced net platform seminar organised by the SPIC-Microsoft Centre of Excellence, UT Administration, on the Punjab Engineering College campus, Sector 12, here yesterday.

Mr Tarun Anand, Technical Evangelist, Microsoft, talked about latest emerging opportunities in the field of Information Technology.

Speaking on “Dot Net Programming’’, he informed the audience of how the technology worked, architecture of dot net and how to make applications using the technology. Dot Net programming was launched the world over on February 13.

The Dot Net Platform creates component infrastructure for web middleware, using the component (software interchangeable part) as its basic building block and supplying these components with streamlined system and application services that integrate with the web.

The Dot Net framework takes the best aspects of the Microsoft Component Object Model and combines them with the best aspects of loosely–coupled web computing. The result is a powerful, productive web component system that simplifies programmer plumbing, integrates security, introduces an Internet-scale deployment system and improves application reliability and scalability.

The SPIC-Microsoft Centre of Excellence was set up as a result of an MOU signed between UT Administration and Microsoft. It has been focusing on creating awareness about Microsoft technologies. More such seminars will also be organised in future. Summer courses in C, C++, Web-designing, SQL, etc will also be started shortly.

COURTS

HIGH COURT
Punjab asked to give details on “links”
of candidates
PPSC selections during Sidhu’s tenure
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 15
Describing as “incomplete” the list of candidates selected and appointed during Punjab Public Service Commission chairman Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu’s tenure, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today asked the state of Punjab to produce another list before the Court on Monday giving information regarding the “links” of the candidates, along with the details of their academic performance.

Initially the Punjab Advocate-General was asked to produce the list on Thursday by the Bench, comprising Mr Justice G.S. Singhvi and Ms Justice Bakhshish Kaur. This, the Judges added, was essential for expeditious disposal of the matter regarding “right to information” and should be done “even if the officials were forced to sit overnight”. However, after Senior Deputy Advocate General sought additional time for providing authentic information regarding the “links” and other details, the Judges gave her time till Monday.

After hearing arguments for nearly three hours, the Judges observed that the people, prima facie, had the right to know the truth, but not half-baked truth. They added that larger public interest warranted that the investigation into the alleged recruitment scam should be brought to a logical end. “If the Vigilance Department failed in performing its duty, the people would not tolerate it”, Mr Justice G.S. Singhvi, speaking for the Bench, added.

Regarding the issue pertaining to the names of Judicial Officers, Mr Justice Singhvi asserted that cognizance would be taken if the evidence regarding their involvement in the alleged scam was brought to the notice of the High Court on the administrative side.

Earlier during the proceedings, Senior Deputy Advocate-General told the Court that Sidhu’s mother, brother and his wife had not been interrogated. She added that the three were untraceable. Giving details, she added that the police had not been able to locate them despite their raiding several places. The case will now come up for further hearing tomorrow.

It may be recalled that the Bench was hearing arguments on a public interest litigation for directions to the state of Punjab and other respondents for conducting “transparent” investigation in the recruitment scandal, besides other related cases including a petition filed by Sidhu against “selective disclosure” to the media.

Haryana asked to reply

A Division Bench of the High Court on Wednesday asked the state of Haryana to give details of the criterion being followed for selecting and appointing the members and chairman of the Service Commission.

Issuing the directions, the Bench, comprising Mr Justice G.S. Singhvi and Ms Justice Bakhshish Kaur, asked the state to inform the Court if educational qualifications, and other factors, were considered while making the appointments. The Judges also asked State Counsel to request Punjab Advocate-General to seek information from the government regarding the criterion being followed in the state of Punjab.

The directions were issued on a petition filed by Mr Devendra Sharma, then member of the Haryana Public Service Commission. He was seeking directions to the state of Haryana and other respondents to provide him with government accommodation.

Writ petitions dismissed

In less than 24 hours after Justice A.S. Garg submitted his resignation as the one-member commission for looking into the allegations of “irregularities, illegalities, corruption and other misdoings” of the previous government headed by Mr Parkash Singh Badal, a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday dismissed as infructuous two writ petitions challenging a notification appointing him.

The petitions were filed by Mr Ajit Singh Kohar, Mr Jagdish Singh Garcha, Bibi Jagir Kaur and eight other MLAs, besides advocate Mr Rupinder Khosla. They had challenged a notification issued by the Punjab Government appointing Justice A.S. Garg as the one-member commission. In their petition, the MLAs had stated that the impugned notification was a result of the Chief Minister’s desire of teaching the Akalis a lesson. They had added that Justice Garg was closely related to Punjab’s Advocate-General.

Mr Khosla had added that under the Punjab Lokpal Act a specific machinery had been provided for looking into the allegations against public men, but through the notification a parallel body had been constituted for performing the same functions. Giving details, he had added that a bare perusal of the provisions of the Punjab Lokpal Act of 1996 would make it clear that the allegations of misconduct were to be probed by the Lokpal himself and as such there was no necessity of appointing a parallel body. If the commission was allowed to continue with its probe, it would not only be against the provisions of the Lokpal Act, but would also hamper the investigations.

Pre-arrest bail plea

Taking up two separate petitions filed by former Akali ministers Nirmal Singh Kahlon and Sucha Singh seeking the grant of anticipatory bail, Mr Justice R.C. Kathuria of the High Court on Wednesday directed the state of Punjab and other respondents that if a first information case was registered against them, a week’s notice would be given in writing.

In his petition, the former ministers had stated that the government had adopted a revengeful attitude towards the opponents and members of the Akali Dal in order to arrest them in false cases. Their counsel had added that some police officials had visited their residences in their absence.

Director asked to appear

On a petition filed by a retired employee seeking the release of medical claim, a Division Bench of the High Court on Wednesday directed Punjab’s Director, Health and Family Welfare to be present in the Court on May 20 along with the amount.

In his petition, Arjun Dass of Jalandhar, earlier working as the Principal of a government school, had contended that his wife was treated at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research for two years but the medical claim was not released. The action, he had added, was arbitrary and illegal.

Streamline judges’ appointments: Singhvi
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 15
The need for adopting a multi-pronged approach, not only to clear pendency but also streamline the procedure for the appointment of judges to the high courts in the country, was stressed by Mr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, former Additional Solicitor-General, here yesterday.

Talking to newsmen, Mr Singhvi, who is also a spokesman for the All-India Congress Committee, said of nearly 650 posts of judge in various high courts in the country, as many as 150 were lying vacant.

“This is nothing new. The vacancies have been continuing since Independence. It is strange that when even at the time of appointment of a judge, his retirement date is known, no steps are taken to maintain the required strength”, said Mr Singhvi.

Advocating the need for ‘declogging’ the legal system, Mr Singhvi said pending cases should be taken out of judiciary and subjected to alternate dispute resolution (ADR) like lok adalats, arbitration and other such forum. He also wanted fast-track courts to remove obstacles in quick disposal of cases.

“Playing politics and favouritism are the key reasons for such a high number of vacancies in the high courts,” he said. He said a transfer policy which was in writing, known to everyone and applied without any exception could deliver the desired results. “But unfortunately, in the past 20 years, the experience has been not so good,” he said maintaining that it was applied “selectively and discriminately”.

Mr Singhvi also advocated the need for setting up of a judicial accountability commission comprising the Chief Justice and two other senior judges of the apex court, besides eminent persons, judges from high courts and one or two Constitutional experts which should be a strong and fair regulatory authority.

Mr Singhvi said though there was Constitutional provision to appoint retired judges of the Supreme Court to expeditiously dispose off pending cases, there was no such provision for the high courts or lower courts. “Even this provision for appointing retired judges on ad hoc basis was not followed regularly,” he added.

He agreed that judges have to be accountable. “But the question is of the method or modality of fixing accountability. Judges cannot be equated with others. To sustain people’s faith in the judiciary, the modality has to be such that it neither demolishes nor erodes this faith”, he said.