New Delhi, April 4
The Super Bazaar, once the most popular retail market among Delhiites but closed due to mismanagement, will be revived after five years giving not only a new hope to them of buying household commodities at cheaper rates but also relief to over 1,000 of its employees rendered jobless as the Supreme Court today gave its approval for its revival.

A Bench of Justices B P Singh and H S Bedi approved the investment of Rs 288 crore by private company Indian Potash Ltd (IPL) and Indian Labour Cooperative Ltd (ILCL) for reviving all the 135 branches of the Super Bazaar under the Multi State Cooperative Societies Act.

The Court approved the appointment of three administrators for running the management of the Super Bazaar, including two from the IPL and said that the Government would withdraw its liquidation order of 2002 regarding the Super Bazaar assets, issued after it was closed in 2002.

It said that all the employees rendered jobless would be taken back by the revived organisation, which would hold its Annual General Body meeting immediately to discuss the revival issue and make necessary changes in the bye-laws.

The main branch of the Super Bazaar, having assets worth several hundred crore rupees would function in the NDMC building at Connaught Place.

The Court, which would continue to monitor the progress of revival, gave time till May 10 to the new administrators to submit their report about the progress made on the opening of the Super Bazaar and making its branches functional.

The Central Registrar was allowed to induct new institutional members under the provisions of the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002. The administrators so appointed would have a fixed tenure of one year, the Court said.

The direction of the Court came on a petition of Super Bazar Karmchari Sangh after a proposal for revival of the organisation was placed before it.

The way to make the bazaar functional was cleared after the Mukesh Abani owned Reliance Industries had withdrawn from the race as the Government refused to change the rules.

Reliance had offered to invest Rs 288 crore in the Super Bazaar to make it functional and the Court had told IPL and ILCL that they should match the offer if they wanted to remain in the race.

After induction of fresh equity and registration of amended bye-laws, the government equity may be returned before the new Board takes over the management from the administrators, the Court said.

New Delhi, April 4
Hopeful of winning over 200 seats in tomorrow’s municipal polls, the opposition BJP today alleged that the ruling Congress is “violating the model code of conduct by distributing liquor to the electorate and threatening them to overturn a ‘certain’ defeat”.

Senior BJP leader Mr V K Malhotra claimed that Congress was ‘terrorising’ people by using muscle power in the poll campaigning.

“Police have seized liquor from many places. Congress is deploying people from outside Delhi for campaigning. They are creating trouble,” Mr Malhotra said.

He said the BJP had written to Delhi Police Commissioner K K Paul in this regard, who gave an assurance that adequate action would be taken against the trouble makers.

On sealing issue, the BJP leader admitted that Bhartiya Janata Party would not be able to stop sealing and demolition drive in the Capital even after it comes to power in the MCD. However, he asserted that the party would try to find out a solution to the problem.

He said this at a press conference when asked how the BJP would stop the sealing of commercial establishment as the MCD had launched the drive after the court direction.

Prof. Malhotra said that he would raise this issue in the coming Parliament session to be held in the last week of this month and would try to find out a solution of this problem.

He said, “On one hand, the representatives of the Centre and the Delhi Government are claiming that the Master Plan 2021 has provided relief to 99.5 per cent people in Delhi, but on the other, the Vice-Chairman of the DDA Mr Dinesh Rai has clearly stated that the Master Plan is not guarantee against sealing. This is a clarification that the Master Plan is only a golden dream recorded on papers only.”

He said, “Bungling and corruption in the MCD at every level and the demand for commissions and harassment by officials and councillors have erupted an anti-Congress wave in the elections. The people have given it a form of public movement.”

At a public rally, another BJP MP Mr Shatrughan Sinha made a forecast that in view of unprecedented support to the BJP and enthusiasm of the voters during the campaign, it was certain that the BJP would make new record in the history of the civic body elections.

On the eve of elections, he addressed three public rallies appealing to make the BJP candidates Mohammad Imran Ismail, Sunil Kakkar, Shyam Morwal, Suraj Bhan Pandey, Arti Mehra and Shailendra Singh Monti victorious. “The MCD elections will prove to be the last nail in coffin of the Congress”, he said.

Meanwhile, the BJP also complained to the State Election Commission against Congress candidate contesting from Shakarpur ward, reserved for Scheduled Caste.

In the complaint, the BJP said N Raja, the Congress candidate hailing from Tamil Nadu, had falsely claimed that he belonged to Scheduled Caste. It said that the Mallah community to which Raja belonged to was not in the SC list. 

New Delhi, April 4
The family of a girl allegedly murdered by her friend at Delhi Zoo three years back is getting ready to file an appeal in Delhi High Court challenging his acquittal by a city court 10 days back.

This was confirmed by Kanchan Gupta’s father now living in Ghaziabad. “We will appeal against the acquittal in the High Court and are working out the grounds of appeal to challenge the lower court judgment,” he said.

The family of the accused, Nikhil Chaudhary, had shifted to Karol Bagh immediately after the incident on July 17, 2004 and is untraceable now. Nikhil, who was acquitted by the court on March 24, left the city with his family immediately after his release from Tihar Jail.

The judge who acquitted Nikhil had rapped the investigating officer in the case for sloppy investigation. Sehdev Singh, now posted as Station House Officer in Ambedkar Nagar was posted at the Special Cell police station in New Delhi Range in Lodhi Colony. When the murder took place, he was SHO at the Nizamuddin police station.

Police are now studying the order which questioned Singh’s role in the case.

Commissioner K K Paul said they were examining the judgment. Chaudhary, who was accused of murdering his friend and neighbour Kanchan in the zoo three years ago, was helped by the fact that the cops failed to produce the parking slip or the counter-slip of the slip issued to Nikhil when he allegedly parked his bike in the zoo parking minutes before the murder.

Acquitting Nikhil of murder charges, the judge had blamed the prosecution for not citing any of the parking lot attendants as a witness, leaving a crucial missing link in the circumstantial evidence.

The court said the prosecution had claimed there was blood on both sides of the blade of the razor recovered from the zoo at Nikhil’s instance. But the report of a forensic lab, where the weapon was sent for examination, said human blood was not detected on the razor.

Other weak points in the probe included introducing reasons to raise doubts about the spot from where the razor had been recovered and non-recovery of Nikhil’s motorcycle by the police. —Agencies

New Delhi, April 4
A court here on Tuesday ordered day-to-day hearing from April 17 in the Nitish Katara murder case in which son of UP politician D P Yadav is the main accused.

The Delhi High Court had in January directed that the trial be concluded by May 31.

Additional sessions judge Ravinder Kaur also summoned for April 9 three witnesses — Ghaziabad cop Anil Samania and two nodal officers from the state-owned telecom major BSNL, to record their statements.

The BSNL officers have been summoned to establish that two landline phone numbers were installed at D P Yadav’s residence which the two witnesses, his daughters Bharti and Bhavna had denied in their testimony.

The prosecution alleges that these were the numbers from which calls were made to victim’s mother Neelam Katara and brother Nitin from February 17 to 19, 2002.

Bhavna had admitted that she might have called Nitish’s brother Nitin at about 10.35 pm on February 18, 2002 and received a call from him the next day and that the mobile phone by which the calls were made to the mother of the deceased on the day of the incident belonged to her.

Vikas and Vishal Yadav, son and nephew of Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav, are accused of kidnapping and killing Nitish as they did not like his relationship with their sister Bharti.

Katara, son of an IAS officer, was murdered on the night intervening February 16-17, 2002 in Ghaziabad.

New Delhi, April 4
The Delhi State Consumer Commission has asked a cement manufacturer to pay Rs 80,000 to a person for supplying sub-standard cement five years ago.

Holding M/s J K Udaipur Udyog Ltd guilty of ‘unfair trade practice’, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission headed by Justice J D Kapoor, directed the company to refund the sum to one K K Bhambri for having supplied 50 bags of defective cement.

“In the circumstances of the case, the complainant is entitled for entire cost of the goods and compensation for mental agony and harassment suffered by him,” observed Justice Kapoor in a recent order.

Dismissing the contention of the company that the cement could not be declared sub-standard in the absence of any appropriate laboratory test, the Commission said that various other factors had established that the product was defective in quality.—PTI

New Delhi, April 4
The Central Information Commission (CIC) has dismissed as “frivolous and inconsequential” a Right to Information (RTI) application seeking information about two-decade-old record of students who passed a competitive examination.

The commission was hearing an appeal by one Anand Prakash Tripathi who had approached the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) seeking a 20-year-old record of students who had qualified the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) with details, including their age, caste and mark sheets.

“Even a casual look at the long list of varied information asked for by the appellant would make it clear that the information asked for is frivolous and even bordering on the absurd,” said Information Commissioner O. P. Kejariwal.

The CIC, which outlined the objectives of the Right to Information (RTI) Act as to bring transparency in the functioning of the public offices, said, “Such diverse and lengthy information seems to be designed only to put the public authorities under undue and uncalled for pressure.”

It, however, appreciated the efforts on the part of the IIT to collect the maximum possible information.

Tripathi’s information application, which was initially filed before the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) in July last year, was later transferred to the IIT.

Dissatisfied with the response received, Tripathi filed an appeal before the commission, but was neither present nor did he send any representative at the hearing. 

New Delhi, April 4
The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police today claimed to have unearthed a big network involved in the production and distribution of pirated books and have seized a huge stock of pirated books of foreign publishers.

A complaint was received from Publishers Association of United Kingdom, Harper Collins, Macmillan Publishers and other such publications alleging that a well-established clandestine network involved in the printing and distribution of high-valued pirated books was operating in Delhi.

Following a tip-off, simultaneous search operations were carried out at five separate locations in Delhi and the network involved in printing, stocking, and sales of pirated books, including high-value medical books and various other best-sellers, was allegedly exposed.

The police have arrested six persons in this connection and seized over 13,500 titles including six high-end heavy duty printing and binding machines.

Raids at a rented house in Laxmi Nagar in East Delhi area, led to the arrest of Sujit Jha and his accomplice Farmanullah Khan. They were stocking over 6,300 titles of books. They used to distribute the books personally to various roadside vendors.

During interrogation, Farmanullah Khan confessed to having been involved in the crime. Over 140 pirated books were allegedly recovered from his car. At his instance, a search operation was conducted in Okhla Village area where their two associates were arrested. More than 1060 kg of loose covers of various authors along with 590 odd books and 4274 book covers of various best sellers were seized from his residence.

Similar search operations were also conducted at a house in Chattarpur area and Rajpur Colony.

New Delhi, April 4
Two kids were charred to death in a fire erupted in a JJ cluster near Batala House of Zakir Nagar area in South Delhi this afternoon.

The fire broke out in a cluster due to leakage of a stove kept in a cluster and it completely engulfed three clusters of the locality.

Two girl child of a family were burnt to death in the fire, said a fire brigade official.

Two fire tenders had to strive about one hour to completely douse the blaze, said the official.

In another fire incident reported last night, two horses were charred to death in a minor fire erupted in Kotla Mubarak Pur area. 

New Delhi, April 4
The Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Delhi and the Indian Society of Perinatologist and Reproductive Biologist (ISOPARB), North Zone, hosted a talk on Caesarean section at AIIMS today. The talk addressed issues related to increase in Caesarean section rate worldwide.

Dr Dermot MacDonald, a visiting faculty at Sitaram Bhartia Institute of Science and Research, was invited for a guest lecture on “Can obstetricians reduce the epidemic of Caesarean?”

Dr MacDonald was Master (Director) of the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, from 1977 to 1983, one of the largest maternity hospitals in Europe.

Delegates from the Association of Obstetrics and Gynecologists of India (AOGD), the Indian Society of Perinatologist and Reproductive Biologist (ISOPARB) and AIIMS and other private hospitals, clinics and institutions attended the talk.

Dr MacDonald addressed the issue of Caesarian section increasing worldwide and yet this method of birth being unavailable to many of those mothers whose need may be greatest.

In his talk, he emphasised the dramatic increase in abdominal birth, particularly in the low risk mothers and among those in the higher socio-economic groups. The increase is not reflected in any alteration in perinatal mortality or in any reduction in severe morbidity in the newborn.

The incidence of cerebral palsy has remained around 2 per 1000 births worldwide despite improved and more intense fetal surveillance antenatally, diminished vaginal operative delivery and a four to sixfold increase in Caesarian birth.

He expressed the opinion that the causes in particular for elective abdominal delivery were complex and multifactorial and mentioned consumer choice, “fear of things going wrong”, anxiety and fear about pain and the general inconvenience of labour among many possible causes.

He stressed the importance of individual consumer consent being given only after full factual information was received, which included the risks of any operative procedure, and indeed to any birth process.

New Delhi, April 4
The success of the Right to Information Act (RTI) is dependent to a large extent on a radical change of mind and attitude on the issue by government functionaries. A two-day seminar cum workshop on the issue concluded today at Jamia Millia Islamia, titled ‘Right to Information Act: Application and Difficulties’.

The RTI Act was passed by Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on May 11 and 12, 2005 and it came into force on October 12, 2005. The Chief Justice of India, Justice Y. K. Sabharwal, earlier commented, “The RTI Act itself is a revolutionary step and the powers committed by the constitution were so far largely limited to the three organs of government – judiciary, executive and legislature, but with the RTI Act, a revolutionary step has been taken to confer these powers on the masses.”—TNS

Faridabad, April 4
Encroachments are posing a major challenge to the overall development here. Problems related to it have multiplied due to the issue not being addressed in a proper manner. While the encroachers have been adopting various measures to occupy the vacant land, mostly belonging to the government agencies, the authorities concerned are still to come up with an effective strategy to counter this.

Land worth several hundreds of crores of rupees has fallen prey to encroachment here, though tough measures in the past about two years have shown positive results in containing the problem. The involvement of officials and employees concerned of various departments cannot be ruled out.

There is hardly any dearth of land being grabbed in the garb of religious structures and social welfare. Small temples and ‘mazaars’ have been raised over the years in the green belts and public spaces in various sectors and colonies in the city, resulting in hampering of various developmental activities.

According to employees of various departments, including the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), history shows that the encroachers normally raise a small platform or a water tank to offer drinking water facility to the public during summer season at a vacant space in the green belt of the main road. When this activity goes unnoticed, a small addition to the structure results in another fortnight or so to make it appear that it was meant for a religious or social activity. There were hundreds of such unauthorised structures in various parts of the city. A drive had been launched a few years ago, when dozens of religious structures had been removed by HUDA, and some of the idols of deities could be seen lying on the premises of the HUDA office here.

A resident of Sector 10 (Housing Board Colony) here said there were at least two such religious structures on the green belt adjoining the dividing road of Sectors 10 and 11 and no action had been taken to remove this encroachment. A cluster having hundreds of jhuggis and ‘kutcha’ houses was present at the bypass road, behind Sectors 17, 18 and 19 for the past several years and encroachment had started in a similar fashion, claimed social activist K. L.Gera. He said now the problem had become so acute the authorities were not even prepared to discuss the issue. There had been political support forthcoming for this illegal colony on several acres of land, which belonged to various departments.

He claimed the problem of traffic chaos and congestion on National Highway 2, known as Mathura road, which links Agra and Mathura with Delhi, was due to encroachments. He said the factories and various commercial institutions along the highway had encroached upon the land meant for the slip road which could be used for light and slow moving vehicles. These encroachments had not been removed so far despite the pressing demand of more space on the main road. The Municipal Corporation recently removed the illegal parking of freight containers on the Surajkund road, spreading on several acres of land belonging to nearby villages.

Ghaziabad, April 4
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has made some sensational disclosures in its chargesheet regarding the murder and blackmailing case of lecturer Ms Kavita Chaudhry of Chaudhri Charan Singh University, Meerut.

The investigating agency disclosed how Kavita, obsessed with a craze to become rich overnight, had gone about developing her relations with ministers and other VIPs and how her accomplice Ravinder Pradhan had ditched and murdered her in the process.

Giving details of how she went about developing her relations and later blackmailed the UP government minister Mirrajuddin, the agency elaborated how accused Pradhan had acquired land and property with the money gained through blackmailing.

Annoyed with the fact that Pradhan had pocketed most of the money, Kavita had threatened him with murder. Later, Pradhan had planned and executed Kavita’s murder.

Underlining the role of Mirrajuddin, CBI sources said three leaders could once again be subjected to lie detector test.

Meanwhile, Special Judicial Magistrate, CBI court, Sapna Mishra in Ghaziabad has rejected the bail plea of Ravinder Pradhan, Ravinder and Ashok.

The CBI also stated that a UP government minister had spoken to Ravinder Pradhan on October 19, 2006 while he was conspiring Kavita’s murder along with Sultan. Two calls were made on October 18 evening and the third was made in the morning on October 19.

In a 15-page report, the CBI said since the minister had failed to give satisfactory replies to the agency’s questions, the investigations will continue, and if need be, interrogation could again be conducted .

The investigating agency brought out that there was a deep-rooted conspiracy behind this case.