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Friday,
March 14, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Haryana VAT Bill passed ‘No disparity’ in canal water distribution Majra’s long answers make 2 MLAs walk out Debate on Tribune report disallowed Jail official booked for ‘helping’ inmates |
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24 criminal cases settled in jail HIGH COURT Ex-MLA’s bail plea rejected HAU kisan mela from March 16 Haryana to recruit
2,000 temporary cops Pickpocket paraded naked Farmers stage
dharna
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Haryana VAT Bill passed Chandigarh, March 13 Alleging that the VAT system was being introduced in the country under pressure from the multinational companies, Mr Dalal apprehended that traders could be prosecuted under the Bill. Mr Anil Vij(Ind) said those dealers who were already registered under the General Sales Tax Act should be registered automatically under the new tax regime. Allaying the apprehensions expressed by the Opposition, Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala said the intention behind the Bill was not to harass anyone. VAT, he said, was the baby of the process of liberalisation started by the Narsimha Rao Government. There was no provision for prosecuting traders under the Haryana Bill contrary to that of Rajasthan which had a provision for sentencing the defaulting traders to a term of three years. The Finance Minister, Prof Sampat Singh, said Haryana could not live in isolation. The Centre had already cleared the VAT Bills of 23 states, including many states being ruled by the Congress. Under the Bill, the dealers having turnovers up to Rs 25 lakh per annum would have the option to pay 1 per cent of the value of goods, subject to a minimum of Rs 900 per month. No official would check records or visit the business premises of these dealers without the prior permission of the Excise and Taxation Commissioner. After the introduction of VAT, the CST would be phased out. The Assembly also cleared the decks for the establishment of Chaudhary Devi Lal University by passing a Bill. The new university would be set up at Sirsa, the native district of the late Deputy Prime Minister, by upgrading the Kurukshetra University Regional Centre already functioning there. The Punjab Village Common Lands(Regulation) Haryana Amendment Bill, 2003, was passed amidst a walkout by the Opposition, which alleged that the provisions of the Bill would be used to grab panchayat land. Under the Bill, a panchayat can gift shamlat deh for charitable purposes or for any other purpose approved by the state government. Mr Chautala denied that the intention behind the Bill was mala fide. He said the Opposition was indulging in cheap politics. The House also passed the Haryana Municipal(Amendment) Bill, 2003, the Haryana Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill and the Haryana Panchayati Raj(Amendment) Bill to make it mandatory for the state Election Commission to consult the state government before fixing the dates of elections to these bodies amidst protest by the Opposition, which alleged that the amendments would impose curbs on the independence of the commission. The Bills to amend the Kurukshetra University Act, the Guru Jambheshwar University Act and the Maharshi Dayanand University Act were also passed by voice vote to abolish the posts of Pro-Vice-Chancellor in these universities. Among the other Bills passed today were the Punjab Excise(Haryana Amendment) Bill, the Revenue Recovery(Haryana Amendment) Bill, the Haryana General Sales Tax(Amendment) Bill, the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas(Amendment) Bill and the Haryana Appropriation(No. 1) Bill. |
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‘No disparity’ in canal water distribution Chandigarh, March 13 The Finance Minister’s answer, however, did not go down well with the Opposition as all MLAs of the Congress and the HVP walked out of the House. They returned after a minute or so. Mr Krishan Pal Gurjar, leader of the BJP, who launched a blistering attack on the government on Tuesday, saying that Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala was taking credit for development works carried out with central funds, was also taken to task by Mr Sampat Singh, who said that as per the recommendations of the Eleventh Finance Commission the share of Haryana in the central taxes had been actually reduced to 0.94 per cent from 1.24 per cent. “Instead of rewarding the better managed states, the Centre was cutting their share to give money to the “bimaru” states”, the Finance Minister said. The reduction would result in a loss of Rs 1106 crore during five years up to 2005. Despite the central government collecting Rs 285 crore from Haryana by imposition of Re 1 as a cess on petrol, the state was given Rs 25 crore only. “ Haryana should have received 50 per cent of the money”, Mr Sampat Singh pleaded. He, however, added that the ruling INLD of Haryana was a part of the NDA Government headed by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee with whom Chief Minister Chautala shared a special rapport. Explaining the deficit in the Budget carried over from the previous year, the Finance Minister said the shortfall was due to additional non-plan expenditure of over Rs 400 crore incurred on account of Rs 128 crore on pensions, Rs 98.45 crore for payment to the sugarcane farmers, Rs 92 crore as compensation to the retrenched employees of public sector undertakings and Rs 75 crore for clearing electricity charges of government departments. The state government had brought down the rates of LADT, passenger tax and stamp duty. Instead of increasing existing taxes or introducing new taxes, the deficit could be bridged in one stroke if the state government could succeed in recovering 12,594 acres of government land from encroachers, and make use of it for productive purposes, he said. Earlier, Mr Abhay Chautala (INLD) and Vaid Kapoor Chand (BJP) spoke in favour of the budget while Mr Zakir Hussain (Cong) opposed it. Mr Abhay Chautala made some digs at Congress leader Bhajan Lal, which prompted the latter to say something in protest. As the Speaker was in no mood to listen to him, Mr Bhajan Lal did not interrupt the speech anymore. The Budget was later passed by voice vote. |
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Majra’s long answers make 2 MLAs walk out Chandigarh, March 13 The elaborate answers given by Mr Majra to questions asked by members of the ruling combine had often been a source of irritation for opposition legislators who felt that every minute detail was mentioned by Mr Majra with a view to denying time to opposition MLAs to come up with questions which could discomfort the government. Mr Majra today took full 45 minutes to answer the first question of question hour which was bizarre even by his own standards. It meant that only 15 minutes were available for answering the remaining 19 questions listed for question hour. Eventually, only three of the 19 questions could be taken up for discussion with the Speaker insisting that MLAs make supplementary questions short. It was Mr Nafe Singh Rathi (INLD) who asked a question about details of machinery of the Irrigation Department and where it was lying at present. Mr Majra, replying on behalf of the Chief Minister, said that machinery worth Rs 66 crore was lying at various locations. The government intended to dispose of useless machinery through auctions. Following Mr Rathi’s next question about the steps taken by the government for augmenting the irrigation network, Mr Majra reeled of an answer which went on and on. The answer was periodically interrupted by Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Congress Deputy Leader Ajay Singh Yadav and NCP representative Jagjit Singh Sangwan, who were irked over the long answer. From the Treasury Benches, Mr Bhagi Ram and Mr Jasbir Malaur came to Mr Majra’s defence and asked the Congress MLAs to take their seats. A supplementary asked by Mr Hooda from Mr Majra about the proposed Dadupur Nalwi channel, followed by a question asked Mr Rajinder Singh Bisla about the Jhansa channel, gave the Chief Parliamentary Secretary further chance to speak. Mr Karan Singh Dalal (RPI) and Mr Jagjit Singh Sangwan, who were trying to intervene but were not allowed, walked out of the House in protest against what they said was the ruling party’s design to treat question hour as a mere formality. Answering a question, Mr Dhirpal Singh, Revenue Minister, said as soon as 66 acres of land was handed over to the state government by the Ministry of Defence, work on a mini secretariat at Panipat would start. |
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Debate on Tribune report disallowed Chandigarh, March 13 As soon as question hour was over, Mr Hooda and Mr Karan Singh Dalal
(RPI) stood up with copies of the newspaper in their hands and started demanding a discussion on the loan worth Rs 7 crore. In reply, Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala said that the HSIDC had given loans to private sugar mills earlier also which Mr Bhajan Lal, who was the Chief Minister thrice, would know. Retorting, Mr Hooda said what he wanted to question was the state government’s act of standing guarantee for a private industrialist and not the loan extended by the HSIDC to the Naraingarh mill. The Speaker, however, refused to allow any discussion on the issue. The Speaker also refused to admit a call-attention notice given by Mr
Dalal. |
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Jail official booked for ‘helping’ inmates Yamunanagar, March 13 Mr Raj Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police of Sub-Jail Jagadhri, today said since Satish Kumar’s transfer at Jagadhri, has activities were being constantly monitored. He said on March 9, he caught Satish Kumar red-handed while taking bribe for providing mobile facility to the jail inmates. He said an amount of Rs 1,140 was recovered from his possession, along with paper slips on which various telephone numbers were noted. The DSP said he immediately reported the matter to the Director-General of Police (Jail) and deposited the money with the state exchequer and put Satish Kumar under suspension. He said he had also informed the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police, Yamunanagar. He said on March 12, Satish Kumar was suspended. He alleged that when he was served notice, Satish Kumar started abusing him and threatened him with dire consequences. He said a case under sections 323, 332, 353, 186 and 506 of the IPC has been registered at the Jagadhri police station. Meanwhile, culprit managed to escape. |
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24 criminal cases settled in jail Bhiwani, March 13 Today was the last day of Mr Justice Virendra Singh’s visit to the district for annual inspection of various courts. He spent about four hours in the jail. He was accompanied by the District and Sessions Judge Mr R.C. Bansal, the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Harpal Singh Malik, the Superintendent of Police Mr Sukhdev Singh, and the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ms Shalini Nagpal. The undertrials booked in petty cases approached the judge for expediting their trial, as they had already spent more time in the jail than the prescribed maximum sentence for their crimes. The CJM, who was accompanying the judge, heard their cases on the spot and decided more than 24 cases. Mr Justice Virendra Singh heard the pleas of about 200 inmates and issued directions to solve their problems to the officials concerned. He asked many of those awaiting hearing of their bail applications to submit applications on the spot and fixed the dates of hearing. |
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HIGH COURT Chandigarh, March 13 Pronouncing the orders on a bunch of over 1,000 petitions, the Bench, comprising Chief Justice Mr B.K. Roy, Mr Justice G.S. Singhvi and Mr Justice V.K. Bali, ruled that chunks of land, under Section 18 of the Punjab Consolidation Act, reserved for common purposes, whether utilised or not, stood vested in the gram panchayats. The Judges added that the gram panchayats were also authorised to get back the land reserved for common purposes even if mutation had been sanctioned in favour of the owner after the amendment. Haryana’s Advocate-Gerenal Surya Kant Sharma appeared for the state. Claiming to be the land owners, the petitioners had earlier contended that the impugned Act had resulted in compulsory acquisition of land. This, they had contended, was violative of Article 31-A, read with Article 300-A of the Constitution of India. It may be recalled that Section 18 of the Consolidation Act had empowered the Consolidation Officer to reserve and assign lands for common purposes by applying cut on “pro-rata” basis. Management and control of the land was transferred to the gram panchayat and state government. Haryana Act number nine was passed after it came to the notice of the government that the land was being encroached upon. As per the amendment, land earmarked or reserved for common purposes under Section 18 was included in shamlat deh.
Direction A Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday directed Rewari’s Deputy Commissioner to get a regular inquiry finalised against a Sarpanch within six weeks. The Bench, comprising Mr Justice G.S. Singhvi and Mr Justice S.S. Grewal, further asked the Deputy Commissioner to pass appropriate orders within two weeks after the finalisation of the inquiry. In his petition, member of Dahina gram panchayat Sheopal Singh had earlier contended that the sarpanch, Mohinder Singh, had earned disqualification as he had one-fifth share in a brick-kiln. |
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Ex-MLA’s bail plea rejected Hisar, March 13 “The case has been registered against me on political grounds as I fought elections against former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal from the Ghirai constituency in 1991 and also contested the Haryana Vidhan Sabha election from the Hansi constituency in 1996 against a candidate of the present government,” Mr Chaudhary in his bail application alleged. After hearing the application on March 6, the court had stayed his arrest till March 12. The application put for hearing again yesterday was rejected by the Additional District and Sessions Judge, Hisar, Mr Dharampal. A case was registered against Chaudhary and two others after Mr Suraj Bhan, a resident of Sisar village, registered a complaint against the MLA for refusing to make a payment of Rs 1.5 lakh after purchasing wheat from his shop at Narela in Delhi. PTI |
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HAU kisan mela from March 16 Hisar, March 13 According to an official spokesman the theme of this year’s mela is “Information Technology in Agriculture”. He said apart from latest know-how in agriculture and allied fields, the visiting farmers would also be able to get improved and certified seed of the recommended crop varieties for the kharif season. An agro-industrial exhibition would be put up in the mela grounds where both government departments and industrial units would display their products. |
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Haryana to recruit
2,000 temporary cops Chandigarh, March 13 A spokesman of the Police Department said the recruitment process would start on April 14 at the respective police lines. All candidates who would report at the respective police lines on the said date would be registered for further process. The application forms could be submitted before April 14 but the applicants would have to report at the respective police lines on that day. |
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Pickpocket paraded naked
Sonepat, March 13 Sources said the youth was caught red-handed while trying to pick the pocket of a man who had come to the market for purchasing vegetables and fruits. The youth was allegedly thrashed by people and later he was let off.
PTI |
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Farmers stage
dharna Sirsa, March 13 Addressing the demonstration, the farmer leaders criticised the Union Budget as anti-people. |
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