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Saturday,
May 10, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Plea on
sex scandal inquiry dismissed Pak
parliamentarians discuss peace moves
Tehelka
tapes to be sent for forensic test |
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Starving staff: Bihar told to deposit 50 cr New Delhi, May 9 In a major relief to 88,000 starving employees of public sector corporations and government undertakings in Bihar, the Supreme Court today directed the state government to deposit within two months, in two equal instalments, Rs 50 crore with the Patna High Court for disbursement of salaries of the employees not paid for several years.
Bill of judicial officers' pay introduced Joshi
completes one year as LS Speaker
NORTH INDIA IN
PARLIAMENT Scuffle
over privilege move in LS Parliament
adjourned
GSAT-2 orbit raised BRO to build road in Afghanistan VHP men
held for trishul diksha 2
collectors shifted in voters’ list scam
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Plea
on sex scandal inquiry dismissed New Delhi, May 9 Dismissing a petition filed by senior woman lawyer, Indira Jaisingh, a Bench comprising Mr Justice S. Rajendra Babu and Mr Justice G.P. Mathur said “exercise of such power (holding internal inquiry) of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) based on moral authority can not be made subject matter of a writ petition to disclose a report made to him.” The only source or authority by which the CJI could exercise this power of inquiry “is moral or ethical and not in exercise of power under law,” the apex court ruled. Also rejecting the plea for CBI inquiry, the court said if the petitioner could “substantiate” that any criminal offence has been committed by any of the judges mentioned in the course of the petition, “appropriate complaint can be lodged before a competent authority for taking action by complying with the
requirement of law.” “There is hardly any need for this court to give any such direction in the matter,” the Bench ruled. The inquiry in the case was conducted by a three-judge committee comprising Chief Justices of Kerala and Bombay High Courts and a judge of the Orissa High Court. They have understood to had cleared the Karnataka High
Court judges from the allegations. The petitioner’s counsel and former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan had argued that in the public interest and in the interest of credibility of judiciary, the report should be made public. However, the Bench ruled that the CJI had only got the information about the judges against the allegations and the report of the committee was “wholly confidential”. “If the CJI is satisfied that no further action is called for in the matter, the proceedings are closed,” it said. |
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Pak parliamentarians discuss peace moves
New Delhi, May 9 The 12-member delegation of Pakistan MPs began its day with a breakfast meeting with opposition MPs at the residence of senior CPM leader Somnath Chatterjee here. After the 90-minute-long meeting, Mr Chatterjee told PTI that “both sides agreed that fundamentalist forces existed in the two countries and were hampering the process of the establishment of peace. These forces should be isolated.” While the visiting delegation was led by member of national assembly Ishaq Khan Khakwani, the Indian side was represented among others by former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, Congress leaders Shivraj Patil and Saifuddin Soz, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and CPM MPs Nilotpal Basu, Rupchand Pal, Hannan Mollah and A.K. Premajam. Expressing his “sincere” desire for the normalisation of ties between the two countries, Mr Gowda said he told the delegation that “we should not allow any third party to meddle in our bilateral affairs.” Pakistani MP and former Editor of Herald magazine Sheri Rehman said the prime aim of the delegation was to ease the tension prevailing between the two countries. “We want that both countries should solve as many as issues bilaterally,” Rehman, who arrived here yesterday on the “unofficial” visit at the invitation of the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy, said after a meeting with Congress leader Mani Shanker Iyer. The Pakistani MP declined to comment on issues like cross-border terrorism, saying “this forms part of track-I diplomacy between India and Pakistan. We have on our agenda to ensure that tension between the two countries eases.” The Pakistani MP also felt that there was no point in cribbing about the past and that efforts should be made by the two countries to move ahead.
PTI |
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Tehelka tapes to be sent for forensic test New Delhi, May 9 As many as 16 videotapes submitted by the newsportal,
Tehelka, to the commission will be sent for forensic examination by “independent and impartial experts” following a 31-page order by justice S.N. Phukan here. Accepting a plea by Samata Party leader Jaya Jaitly and others, the former Supreme Court Judge said the commission had prima facie serious doubts that the tapes, which were the “ultimate arbiters”, might be tampered with. “These doubts have to be removed and the truth with regard to the videotapes has to be found,” he said. Justice K. Venkataswami, who had headed the Commission for nearly 18 months before resigning under controversial circumstances, had twice turned down Ms Jaitly’s plea maintaining that there was no prima facie case for the forensic examination at that stage. “The examination of the original is essential in order to come to a conclusion as to the veracity of the tapes,” the Judge said and asked the noticees to give their response by May 19 as to where the tapes should be sent for the forensic examination. “In any case, no prejudice will be caused to Tehelka if the tapes are sent for forensic examination,” Justice Phukan said. It has been more than two years since the Tehelka expose was made public and during these two years the Commission has already sought five extensions.
PTI |
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Starving
staff: Bihar told to deposit 50 cr
New Delhi, May 9 A Bench of Chief Justice
V.N. Khare and Mr Justice S.B. Sinha asked the High Court to dispose of all liquidation proceedings in respect of government companies as expeditiously as possible. The High Court, while disbursing the salaries to the employees might direct disbursement of some funds to the needy employees on an ad hoc basis to enable them to sustain themselves for the time being, it said. The directions were given by the court on an application in a pending public interest litigation by advocate Kaila
Hingorani, highlighting the plight of the starving employees of 19 corporations and seeking immediate interim relief as more than 1,500 employees had already died of starvation. Meanwhile, the Bihar Government is waiting for the copy of the Supreme Court judgement passed today directing it to deposit Rs 50 crore with the Patna High Court. Bihar Excise Minister Shivanand Tiwari told UNI here that the government would look into the details of the judgement and the legal points involved in it. He said the government was “still not aware of the judgement’s text and facts”. Meanwhile, Corporation Employees Union leader Mr Ashwani said the employees of the corporations and the unions had lost faith in democracy “due to the Bihar Government’s attitude” but today’s judgement had revived their faith in judiciary and democracy, he said.
UNI |
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Bill of judicial officers' pay introduced
New Delhi, May 9 The Bill, introduced by Law and Justice Minister Arun Jaitley, seeks to provide scale of pay of the judicial officers in the Union Territories and special judicial allowance at the rate of 10 per cent of their basic pay. The proposal involves recurring expenditure of about Rs 76.56 lakh per annum and non-recurring expenditure of Rs 5.16 crore towards the payment of arrears from July 1, 1996. Meanwhile, Chief Secretaries and Advocates-General of 17 states today appeared before the Supreme Court pursuant to the court’s earlier direction asking them to explain in person whether they had complied with the Shetty Commission report, recommending higher pay scales to judicial officers in their respective states. The starts of Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab and Rajasthan informed the court that they had implemented the Shetty Commission report. The states of Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa, West Bengal, Tripura, Uttaranchal were given time to file
affidavits indicating the manner in which they proposed to implement the report including the payment of arrears. In respect of Union Territories, the court rejected the submission of the Attorney-General that pay scales in respect of judicial officers of the Union Territories had been slightly modified and in certain cases the officers would get more than what had been recommended by the Shetty Commission. The court said it wanted uniformity to be maintained in this regard across the country and gave 10 weeks’ time to the Centre to implement the recommendations in letter and spirit. A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Mr Justice S. Rajendra Babu and Mr Justice M.B. Shah before whom the matter is pending, dispensed with the appearance of the Chief Secretaries and Advocates-General of the states in subsequent hearing and adjourned the matter till after the summer vacation.
UNI |
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Joshi completes one year as LS Speaker New Delhi, May 9 “I will be actually congratulated when not even a single member enters the well of the House,” the Speaker said while responding to the members gesture. The TDP’s K. Yerrannaidu, while rising to ask a question during question hour, congratulated Mr Joshi and assured him full cooperation in running the business. When Mr Joshi told Mr Naidu that “you can ask two or three questions”, the House burst into laughter. The TDP leader was joined by members from various parties with a loud applause. Other leaders, including Ramvilas Paswan (Lok Janshakti), Mulayam Singh Yadav (Samajwadi Party), V. Saroja (AIADMK) and Shiv Sena’s Suresh Jadhav, also stood up to congratulate the Speaker on behalf of the entire House. When Mr Jadhav rose to ask a question after congratulating him, Mr Joshi, earlier his party colleague. quipped: “Since you are from the Shiv Sena, you will ask only one question”. |
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NORTH INDIA IN PARLIAMENT New Delhi, May 9 Making a statement to this effect under Rule 377 and also during zero hour in the Lok Sabha, Mr Bansal lamented that one section of society which had often missed out on housing schemes of the Chandigarh UT Administration or the Chandigarh Housing Board was the lower income group (LIG). “There are people who have lived in Chandigarh for decades, employed either with government or private establishments and have to shell out a major part of their meagre salaries on rent of residential accommodation. They legitimately yearn to own a modest shelter of their own in a city to which they have given the best part of their lives but the costs are prohibitive”, Mr Bansal said. It was, therefore, necessary for the UT Administration to float an affordable self-financing LIG housing scheme which could be available to all residents whose income was between the fixed parameters and who had lived and worked in Chandigarh for at least five years, he said. While there was a need for the administration to provide land, banks needed to be involved to extend soft loans, Mr Bansal added. There are four ongoing new railway line projects in Punjab. These are Abohar-Fazilka (42.72 km), Chandigarh-Ludhiana (95 km), Nangal Dam-Talwara (112.9 km) and Tarn Taran-Goindwal (21) km, Minister for Railways Nitish Kumar told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply. The minister said the final location surveys of these projects had been completed and the works were in various stages of progress. Besides these, the construction of the line between Beas and Dera Baba Jaimal Singh (5 km) would be taken up after an agreement is signed and land made available by the dera authorities. In Punjab, the Chandigarh-Morinda line (45 km) is likely to be completed during the 10th Five-Year Plan period. The works are being progressed as per availability of resources, the minister told the House. |
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Scuffle
over privilege move in LS New Delhi, May 9 As the House assembled this morning, BJP Chief Whip Vijay Kumar Malhotra sought to know from Speaker Manohar Joshi the fate of a notice of breach of privilege given by him against Ms Gandhi and Mr Patil. On this, angry members from both sides stormed the well menacingly but senior members, including former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, immediately intervened and persuaded them to go back to their seats. Mr Malhotra said action initiated against four Congress members, for defying the party’s decision to boycott Defence Minister George Fernandes yesterday, clearly amounted to the breach of privilege of members as they had every right to participate in the House proceedings. The BJP leader was strongly supported by the Samata Party members, who said they too had given similar notices against Ms Gandhi and Mr Patil. Samata Party member Prabhunath Singh said Ms Gandhi and Mr Patil be hauled up for initiating action against the four Congress members. This was objected to by RJD leader Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who had heated exchanges with the Samata Party member. Shouting against each other, they trooped into the well. The RJD leader was also joined by several Congress members. Mr Patil said walkout was a civilised manner to register protest and if some members had violated party’s decision, it was up to the party leadership to deal with it. |
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Parliament
adjourned New Delhi, May 9 Some of the important business transacted during the session in the Lok Sabha included the passage of the Union and Railway Budget and two Constitutional amendments. However, the controversial Constitutional amendment, seeking 33 per cent reservations for women, could not be passed due to the lack of consensus and was deferred indefinitely. |
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‘Astra’ test-fired Balasore (Orissa), May 9 According to ITR sources, the guided missile, having a striking range between 10 and 25 km, was testfired at 12.15 p.m. Developed indigenously by the Defence Research Development Organisation, the missile, ITR sources said, met the mission successfully. This was the maiden test-fire of the missile from the ITR which, sources said, had been developed keeping in view the three-pronged defence system for
metropolitan cities, particularly after the September 11 incident. UNI |
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GSAT-2 orbit raised New Delhi, May 9 The operation was carried out by commanding the 1800-kg satellite from the master control facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka, an official release said. Multiple orbit-raising operations are planned on the GSAT-2 to raise it from its current geo-synchronous transfer orbit (GTO) to the geosynchronous orbit. The GSLV-D2, had lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SHAR), Sriharikota, taking its second developmental test flight. The vehicle successfully placed GSAT-2 in an orbit of 180-km perigee (nearest point to the earth) and 36,000-km apogee (farthest point from the earth).
PTI |
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BRO to build road in Afghanistan New Delhi, May 9 The BRO is also constructing the Rs 1,000-crore all-weather 292-km road, linking Himachal Pradesh with Leh and Kargil. The construction work for a road, linking the Kashmir valley with the rest of the country via Doda, is also being carried out. The BRO Director-General, Lieut-Gen Prakash Suri, today said the organisation had last month carried out a recce and a survey for the construction of the 250-km road in Afghanistan, between Delaram and Zaranj on the border with Iran, and a project report was being prepared. Addressing newsmen here on the eve of the 43rd raising day of the force, General Suri said the construction work was expected to start by August and was targeted to be completed in four years. The BRO had also been entrusted with the maintenance of the prestigious 160-km-long Tamu-Kalemyo-Kalewa road, constructed by it, for a period of six years, he said. A fence on the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya, Tripura and
Mizoram, a thrust area in view of the scourge of illegal immigration from Bangladesh, was also being constructed by the BRO. “But militancy is hampering the work of the organisation, particularly in Manipur,” he said. The Territorial Army (TA) was providing protection to the BRO men for which the organisation was paying, General Suri said, adding that the government had been requested to increase the resources so that more men from the TA could be deployed for security. The force lost 75 of its men and around 200 contract labourers last year because of “unnatural reasons”, the BRO chief said. The BRO had also upgraded the Jawahar tunnel, providing the only surface link between the Kashmir valley and the rest of the country. The 3-km tunnel, facing a looming threat from terrorists, had been equipped with computer-controlled TV monitors to prevent any subversive act. The BRO was also constructing a 40-km stretch of National Highway-44 in Uttaranchal, between Chamba and Darasu as the existing road was bound to be submerged due to rising water level in the Tehri dam, he said. The
four-laning of 17.20-km stretch of the National Highway Development Project between Pathankot and Jammu and the construction of 637.60-m-long Naodhing bridge on National Highway-52 in Arunachal Pradesh were other thrust areas of the organisation, he said. Improving of a 500-km stretch of National Highway-52, aimed at economic development of Assam, had been entrusted to the BRO, he
said. |
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VHP men held for trishul diksha Bharatpur, May 9 The Rajasthan Government had imposed a complete ban on carrying, possessing, displaying and distributing multi-bladed trishul-shaped weapons in the state in March this year. Bharatpur Range Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Sudhakar Johari said 10 activists, including BJP district president Girdhari Tiwari, were nabbed under the Arms Act and five others were booked under Section 151, IPC, on charges of breach of peace. The banned sharp-edged tri-bladed weapons were also seized from their possession, Mr Johari said. A large number of VHP and Bajrang Dal activists had gathered at a temple here to receive “trishul diksha”, he added.
UNI |
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2 collectors shifted in voters’ list scam Bhopal, May 9 This follows the Election Commission of India’s (EC) latest directive to the state government to stay the process of preparation of voters’ lists in Khargone and Shahdol districts. Earlier, the EC had sent a missive to the state government seeking transfers of the Collectors. Chief Minister Digvijay Singh said the process for shifting of the two Collectors was already under way and that the decision was taken “much earlier.” |
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9 undertrials escape from court Bokaro, May 9 SDO suspended Raipur (Chhattisgarh) May 9 |
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