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NCW to appeal against HC order
PAC members make ‘breach of privilege’ complaint against Vats
UGC guidelines to ensure greater transparency
Three policemen acquitted in custodial |
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Govt to frame policy on healthcare for women
Job racket busted, three held
Two brothers kill alcoholic siblings
Sex worker rescues 3-yr-old girl up for sale
Power likely to cost more in UP
Amity student commits suicide for being marked absent in exam
Ultramodern buses to ply in Noida
LPG booking time raised to 30 days
Katju is new CJ of Delhi High Court
Sunder Bhatti brought from jail to file nomination
Income Tax official seeks bail
Another Tihar official arrested
Demand for inducting Rahul in CWC
Katara murder accused granted bail
Bano Sartaj gets award
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NCW to appeal against HC order on age issue
New Delhi, October 6 “A girl of 15 is not capable of making a decision relating to marriage. The judgement will encourage child marriage rather than discourage it,” the NCW said in a statement. “The NCW plans to appeal against the judgement and approach the government for necessary relief,” it said.
Earlier, women’s groups gathered at a National Consultation meet on the Draft Protection Against Sexual Harassment of Women Bill, 2005, here today passed a resolution criticising the judgment passed by the court yesterday. “It is a ridiculous, outrageous and retrograde judgement,” CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and President of the women’s group AIDWA, Brinda Karat said. “The decision is highly objectionable. We condemn it in the severest of terms. The High Court has gone against the laws banning child marriage,” Karat said.
She said it was the responsibility of the Centre to immediately appeal against the court order. Tourism Minister Renuka Choudhury, who was chief guest at the consultation, also criticised the court’s decision, saying “I am baffled, upset and angry. If a girl can marry at 15, then you might as well allow 15-year-olds to drink, vote and drive.” The National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) criticised the order, saying, “this judgment, with one stroke of the pen, renders invalid or at least ineffective, the existing law on the age of marriage, which, as of today stands at age 18 for girls.” NFIW General Secretary Annie Raja said the order also contradicted the Child Marriage (Restraint) Act, which forbids the marriage of minors. “Lastly, it overturns the laws on rape, according to which, sexual intercourse with a girl below the age of 16, with or without her consent, is deemed to be rape,” she said. The Delhi High Court had ruled on Wednesday that the marriage of a minor girl above 15 years of age is not illegal if it is her free will and she cannot be sent to Nari Niketan against her will. “The marriage was neither void nor illegal on account of the spouse being less than 18 years of age and being over 15 years of age,” a Division Bench of Jusice Manmohan Sarin and Justice Manju Goel said. The order came in connection with three separate cases wherein minor girls above the age of 15 had eloped and married men of their choice and the girls’ parents had lodged kidnapping cases against their son-in-laws. The Bench quashed the FIRs and ordered the release of the three husbands, saying the essential ingredient of the offence of kidnapping i.e. “taking away or enticing away” of the minor - was
missing in these cases. The court also ordered the release of the girls from Nari Niketan and allowed them, one of them pregnant, to accompany their respective husbands. “The girls having reached the age of discretion had of their own volition accompanied the men of their choice,” the court said noting that “evidence suggested that the initiative came from them and they got married of their own accord and were desirous of living with their respective husbands”. Quoting from 1965 apex court verdict in S Varadrajan Vs State of Madras, the Bench said when a girl, who though a minor had attained the age of discretion and was on the verge of attaining the age of majority, accompanied a man with the desire of being his wife, the man cannot be held guilty of kidnapping as “the law does not cast upon him the duty of taking her back to her father’s house or even of telling her not to
accompany him”.
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PAC members make ‘breach of privilege’ complaint against Vats
New Delhi, October 6 PAC members Kiran Walia, Narender Nath, Baljor Singh, Veer Singh Dhingan and Ramesh Lamba, all belonging to Congress, yesterday wrote to Iqbal, who is also Chairman of the Priveleges Committee, complaining that certain comments made by Vats, a party colleague, to the media amounted to “breach of privilege and contempt (of the House)”. “Dr S C Vats, Chairman of the PAC, has reflected poorly on the conduct of the committee members, forgetting his duties as chairman to not reflect on the speeches and conduct of the committee members,” wrote the five MLAs in their letter to Iqbal. They said Vats made “uncalled for remarks” against the voting and conduct of the PAC members. “It is requested that on the basis of sufficient proof of breach of privilege against Dr S C Vats, the matter may be referred to the Privileges Committee for examining the various issues in detail,” the PAC members wrote. They also requested that till any decision was reached in the matter, Vats may be debarred from membership of the PAC. Vats had resigned from the PAC chairman’s post on the eve of the Monsoon Session, hinting that there was an attempt to sabotage the report. His resignation, however, was turned down by Speaker Chaudhary Prem Singh. Vats, meanwhile, refused to offer any comments on the complaint against him, saying he will give his side of the story to the Speaker as when any privilege notice is sent to him. “I have no reaction to give. The Speaker of the House is the only competent authority who can ask for my comments on this. I will only reply to a privilege notice as when it is sent to me,” he said. The Report of the PAC on the Privatisation of Power in Delhi, which reportedly indicts the Sheila Dikshit government on the issue and has called for a CBI inquiry into the reforms process, was to be tabled in the Monsoon Session.
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UGC guidelines to ensure greater transparency
New Delhi, October 6 It was pointed out that it was meant to safeguard the interests of the students. The information would also translate into better governance through information sharing. In the Schedule I, all higher educational institutions will have to disclose information about their profile, name, address, web-site, year of establishment, jurisdiction, the type of institution and whether it is set up by the Union Government, the state government, local body or a trust. All institutions will be required to furnish details about affiliations, funding sources, accreditation by NAAC and details about the trustees, governing body members and governance. Apart from names and contact information of head and other senior academic administrators, they will also be required to disclose the innovative methods or experimentation used in governance, grievance redressal mechanism, academic calendar, admission policy and innovative methods or experimentation used in teaching. The profile of the institution would also have to be mentioned to prevent it from making any false claims, details about the faculty and staff, their strength and qualifications. For the benefit of students, all student data for the latest three years may be provided and the dropout rate will have to be mentioned. To help prospective students, details of infrastructure will also have to be provided. This includes the student-teacher ratio, land area, number of lecture halls, computer centre,
laboratories and library facilities. The fees charged from students, operating budget and government grants will also be in the public domain as will fee-income from distance education courses, research and consultancy and donations. In the Schedule II, all “deceptive practices in
the context of higher education institutions” will be included. “It is deceptive for a higher education institution in promoting any of its interests in its advertisements, promotional materials or in any other manner to misrepresent, directly or indirectly, by implication,” the UGC said. The institutions have been barred from using name, label, insignia or designation, which misleads and deceives prospective students as part of or connected with a branch, agencies of the government or foreign institution. Offering an academic, professional and occupational degree not authorised by the appropriate government or regulatory body has also been cautioned against.
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Three policemen acquitted in custodial death case
New Delhi, October 6 “All the accused have been acquitted of the offences of which they were charged in the instant case by this court giving them the benefit of doubt,” Additional Sessions Judge Chandra Gupta said while acquitting the accused from the charges under various section of the IPC. The court, after finding “prima-facie evidence” on July 30, had framed charges against Sub-Inspector Ram Kumar, Assistant Sub-Inspector Ramesh Chand, Constable Lukmaan Ali, Shakti Tyagi and Kanwar Pal Singh under section 34 (common intention, 342 (wrongful confinement) and 302 (murder) of IPC. But the prosecution suffered a jolt when all the three sons of the victim, including complainant Sanjeev Kumar, turned hostile. It was Sanjeev who had lodged the complaint with the police regarding the death of his father due to alleged physical assault in police custody. SI Ram Kumar had picked up deceased Kishan Singh on March 16 from Jhil Mil industrial area in Delhi on the complaint of Tyagi and his driver Kanwar Pal that he had forcibly taken away their van. As per the prosecution case, the victim was brutally assaulted by the police in the lock-up resulting in his death the next day. The medical report said the “cause of death is shock due to haemorrhage occuring as a cumulative effect of injuries on the body caused by repeated assaults by hard objects upon the deceased”.
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Govt to frame policy on healthcare for women
New Delhi, October 6 “The new policy will provide a ground to make functional a reliable and modern health infrastructure in Delhi,” she said. Around 250 women from different parts of the capital and a number of NGOs are taking part in the workshop, which will frame an appropriate course of action for women’s empowerment. The Chief Minister said the government’s ‘Stree Shakti’ programme, which involves holding health check-up camps, being carried out in association with the Bhagidari movement had helped a large number of women in rural and slum areas of Delhi. “The post-camp phase is very crucial to ensure that the beneficiaries are availing the benefits from various agencies,” Ms Dikshit said. She informed that over 2 lakh women have benefited by joining the heathcare camps. Health and Social Welfare Minister Yoganand Shastri and Chief Secretary S Regunathan were also present in the workshop.
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Job racket busted, three held
New Delhi, October 6 The three accused have been identified as Madhivanan (31), Jitender Singh (23) and Kailash Chander (26). The matter came to light after S. Krishna, IRS officer, PS to Minister of State for Railways, made a complaint to the EOW alleging that a fake letter bearing his forged signatures along with the testimonials of six candidates for employment in Bikaner Division of the North Western Railways was detected. The concerned official in Bikaner Division returned the papers showing his inability to recruit them due to the unavailability of any posts. Similar letters were also received from General Manager, Northern Railways, Allahabad and East Central Railways, Hajipur. According to the DCP, EOW, Mr Prabhakar, “Similar complaint from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare was received regarding cheating and forgery wherein it was mentioned that the tenders for purchase of different vaccines for vaccination of Haj pilgrims was called.” The police said that Madhivanan was a matriculate and came in contact with one Kailash Chander, a class IV employee in the office of MOS, Railways, Rail Bhawan. Kailash informed the accused about 55,000 vacancies in the Railways. All the accused hatched a plan to cheat people on the pretext of getting them jobs there.
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Two brothers kill alcoholic siblings
Ghaziabad, October 6 The police said Ram Avtar, 35, and Naresh, 25, were sons of Sardar Singh of Muktesra village who died four years ago. Rohtash, alias Bindi, and Narender were the other two sons of Sardar Singh. All brothers had inherited 15 bighas land each. None of them was married. Ram Avtar was working as a truck driver and Naresh had set up a general merchant shop in the village. But both had become habitual drunkards On Tuesday evening, Ram Avtar and Naresh came home fully drunk. They started beating their mother Kaleshry on some excuse. As a result, she fell down unconscious. The second son, Rohtesh, alias Bindi, and the fourth one, Narender, could not tolerate this. When they protested, the other two assaulted them too and later trained revolvers on them. Narender and Bindi, the police said, snatched the revolvers from their brothers and shot them indiscriminately. After that, they dragged their bodies and burnt them near the main road. Village pradhan Simraj Singh informed the police who retrieved the half-burnt bodies of Ram Avtar and Naresh. Rohtesh and Narender are both absconding.
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Sex worker rescues 3-yr-old girl up for sale
Meerut, October 6 She sent the girl right back to her parents and has earned the gratitude of local residents for the “gesture of motherly love”, police said today. They said the child Kavita was yesterday brought to the sex worker Rakhi by Bheem Mandal who allegedly kidnapped her from his employer Amar Makhan running a tiffin-supply business in the city. He offered to sell the child for Rs 5,000, but Rakhi suspected some foul play and questioned Mandal about where he got the girl from, they said. Mandal told her that Kavita was the daughter of his employer and that he had kidnapped her, whereupon Rakhi refused to buy the child, they said.
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Power likely to cost more in UP
Noida, October 6 Elaborating this, the UPPC Chairman said in case the corporation had to buy land for setting up new power substations the cost of land would be added to the tariff which the consumer would have to pay. Mr Khurana said this policy had been evolved for expansion of power generation and transmission facilities. He said Pali power station was likely to be commissioned by December 15, 2005. The commissioning of this project, which was scheduled for July 31, 2005, has been further postponed to September 2005. This power house, he said, would provide considerable relief to the Noida/Greater Noida areas. Mr Khurana said a central distribution power grid was on the anvil. As the northern grid was short of power while other grids were surplus this was being considered as a way out. Power under the new arrangements, he said, would be transferred to the northern grid from other grids to tie over the power shortage in north India.
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Amity student commits suicide for being marked absent in exam
New Delhi, October 6 Khatri, son of a bank official, was a student of the Amity School of Technology and Management in Gurgaon. In his suicide note, Khatri wrote that one of his teachers had marked him absent for a first semester examination, which he had actually appeared for. He had applied for re-examination after which it was found that he had got 66 per cent in the paper. Despite that the director of the institute, Mr S. P. Singh, had asked him to reappear in the paper, he wrote in his suicide note. Khatri’s parents said they had appealed several times to the director in this regard but no action was taken. As a result, Khatri was depressed. The police said they were investigating all aspects of the case.
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Ultramodern buses to ply in Noida
Noida, October 6 The UP Transport Minister also warned the private bus operators to update their buses according to the required standards or they would be dealt with sternly. He agreed that running local buses services in towns was a losing proposition for the roadways but they would continue to provide these services for the convenience of the public. Mr Agarwal said UP Roadways was likely to open its own chain of roadside restaurants by the name of Sarus. The passengers would be provided all facilities under one roof.
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LPG booking time raised to 30 days
Faridabad, October 6 At a meeting held here yesterday, the Deputy Commissioner, Ms G. Anupama, expressed concern over the problems faced by the consumers and said measures were being taken to improve the situation. She pulled up the officials, including officials of the oil companies, for not taking strict action against commercial use and the hoarders. Blaming the owners of various gas agencies for the current situation, she asked them not to supply domestic LPG cylinders to shopkeepers and the small industrial units and ensure that there was no black marketing or illegal supply to non-domestic consumers. She asked the agency officials to record the number of cylinders supplied to each consumer and ensure that the same cylinder was taken back at the time of refill. She announced to continue the campaign to check misuse of the LPG cylinders by the vehicle owners and other non-domestic people.
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Katju is new CJ of Delhi High Court
New Delhi, October 6 He directed Justice Katju to take charge of his
new office on or before October 20. Justice Katju, who is expected to reach the national Capital on October 10 will be sworn-in as Delhi High Court Chief Justice on October 12. He had taken over as Chief Justice of Madras High Court in November last, replacing Justice B Subashan Reddy who
was transferred to Kerala High Court.
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Sunder Bhatti brought from jail to file nomination
Greater Noida, October 6 For an hour while Sunder was in the block office among his supporters, the police were on extra alert. A total of 130 nominations were filed for 86 seats in the block. Sunder has filed nomination for ward no 66 in
Dhandhola. Along with the police, his own supporters appeared equally concerned about safety of Sunder Bhatti. His supporters kept raising slogans in his support all the while in the block office. Sunder is in jail in connection with dozens of cases of murder, looting, kidnapping, extortion and attempt to murder that have been registered against him in Delhi, Haryana and UP.
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Income Tax official seeks bail
New Delhi, October 6 Aggarwal filed the bail application before Special Judge Pratibha Rani after he was produced before the court by the CBI on the expiry of his police custody. While remanding him to judicial custody till October 20, the court posted his bail application for hearing on October 10. The agency had totalled his net property to be over Rs 2 crore, including a factory. The accused was picked up by CBI during the nation-wide anti-corruption swoop on October
3. Aggarwal’s premises were raided during the CBI’s special drive on September 30 following allegations that he had amassed assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.
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Another Tihar official arrested
New Delhi, October 6 The police officials said that 11 accused have already been arrested in the same case for demanding and accepting bribe from the people, who wanted to meet their relatives in Tihar Jail. The accused was
produced in the court of Special Judge Tis Hazari Court, Mr. S.N. Dhingra, who has remanded him to one-day police custody.
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Demand for inducting Rahul in CWC
New Delhi, October 6 Describing Mr Rahul Gandhi as an icon for the youth, Mr Sharma said that the young MP symbolised the aspirations of the younger generation. In a statement, Mr Sharma urged the Congress
leadership to give a more prominent role to Mr Gandhi in the party in keeping with the wishes of the
people.
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Katara murder accused granted bail
New Delhi, October 6
The court asked him to submit his passport before the trial court and not to leave the country without its prior permission. The court specifically directed him not to contact his cousin sister Bharati Yadav and refrain from influencing any other witness in the case.—TNS
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Bano Sartaj gets award
New Delhi, October 6 Dr Sartaj was presented the Shrimati Ratan Sharma Smriti Bal Sahitya Puruskar-2005 by External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh for “Tees Akanki” at a function organised by the Dr Ratanlal Sharma Smriti Nyas in the Capital today.—TNS
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