Chandigarh, May 20
Punjab Chief Secretary Ramesh Inder Singh could take over as the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) before May 28, paving the way for Financial Commissioner, Excise and Taxation, Shivinder Singh Brar to take his post.

The post of CIC has been vacant since July, 2008, and recently the High Court had directed the government to fill it by May 28. Though the Chief Secretary still has more than four months to go in service with his retirement due on September 30, sources say in case he has to remain in contention for the CIC’s post, he will have to step down earlier.

Ramesh Inder, who is from the 1974 batch, had taken over as Chief Secretary in March, 2007, when the SAD-BJP government took over the reins of the state. The fact that the state government did not fill the post of CIC for so long has lent credence to the reports that it was waiting to appoint Ramesh Inder to this position post retirement.

Meanwhile, even as speculation about Ramesh Inder’s appointment is rife and could be made on or after May 26 when the Chief Minister returns from the Nurmahal bypoll to be held on May 25, there is an intense speculation that Brar will fill his post.

Brar is being tipped for the top post despite being from the 1977 batch and 10 other Punjab IAS officers being senior to him. However, of them Dr Jivtesh Singh Maini, Mukul Joshi and Dr A Didar Singh are on the central deputation. Besides, the sources said, two other seniors Dr BC Gupta (Financial Commissioner, Cooperation) and SC Agrawal (Principal Secretary, Finance) are being empanelled for the post of Secretary at the Centre though this does not restrict them from being chosen for the top post. Dr BC Gupta was earlier seen as one of the top contenders for the post.

Others whom Brar could supercede include G S Cheema, Romila Dubey (Financial Commissioner, Revenue), Tejinder Kaur, who is set to retire on September 30 this year, P Ram and DS Jaspal. In case Brar is appointed to the top post, he will remain in office till the end of the term of the present SAD-BJP government in February, 2012.

Meanwhile, there is likely to be a minor reshuffle of senior IAS officers as the EC had ordered the transfer for Principal Secretary, Home, Sudhir Mittal during the run up to the elections. It is to be seen whether Mittal chooses to come back to the state again from Delhi. Financial Commissioner, Development, NS Kang, who also holds the dual charge of Home, is likely to be divested of one of his charges.

Bathinda, May 20
The police, on the direction of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, has booked an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) on the charges of murder and wrongful confinement of a youth.

The case has been registered at the cantonment police station, where Balbir Singh, ASI in question, had served in 2007. Now he is posted somewhere in Faridkot district.

According to details, Avtar Singh and Gurpreet Kaur of Gobindpura village were in love and finding the girl’s family opposed to the relationship, both had eloped and solemnised their wedding at a gurdwara in Chandigarh, in February 2007.

Then village panchayat got them back and made efforts to get the matter settled, but Bikar Singh, father of the girl, allegedly in connivance of ASI Balbir Singh picked up the boy. He was kept in police custody wrongfully and tortured.

Later, the body of the boy was found at the railway track with a suicide note in the pocket. The ASI, being an investigation officer of the case, dumped the matter after registering a case under Section 174, CrPC.

The boy’s father Ram Sarup filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana HC in which he accused Balbir of acting with mala fide intention in connivance with Bikar Singh, with charges of killing his son with torture.

After a long procedure, now the HC has sent an order to the cantonment police station to book Balbir and the girl’s father Bikar for murder and re-investigate the matter.

Chandigarh, May 20
Poll results can sometimes be misleading. This appears to be true even in case of the SAD that has lost eight seats in the parliamentary polls to the Congress, but the percentage of votes it polled this time is actually the party’s best since 1966, when Punjab was re-organised on linguistic basis.

The SAD finished second by a razor thin margin on two others seats of Hoshiarpur (366 votes) and Gurdaspur (8,342 votes). Had the BJP helped the SAD there, the results could have been different.

The margin in Hoshiarpur is the lowest since India’s first parliamentary elections and the lowest for any seat in the state since 1985 when Mewa Singh Gill won the Ludhiana constituency for the SAD by a margin of just 140 votes. Similarly, the margin in Gurdaspur is the lowest recorded on this seat since Independence.

A careful scrutiny of the poll results show that the SAD beat the anti-incumbency factor and won more assembly segments, than it had done in the preceding polls. It assembly tally rose to 50 assembly segments now compared to 49 assembly seats in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha poll of February, 2007.

The party has also wrested back its hold on the rural Punjab winning handsomely in the peasant-dominated core Malwa belt of Bathinda, Faridkot and Ferozepur. The reversal in Malwa, which had formed the backbone of the Congress show in the assembly polls, was complete in terms of votes cast and assembly segments won.

Again, in terms of seats won, the SAD finished by bagging seven assembly segments in the Bathinda LS constituency where it had won just two in the 2007 Vidhan Sabha polls. Similarly, in Faridkot, it got eight segments, six more than the two seats it had won in 2007.

Even in Patiala, where the Congress retained the Lok Sabha seat, the SAD snatched one additional assembly segment compared to the 2007 polls. In terms of overall percentage, the SAD registered a poll tally of 2.12 per cent more than its poll percentage in the 2004 LS polls. 

New Delhi, May 20
The Congress high command has sought a report from the Punjab Congress on defeat in five Lok Sabha constituencies.

The party is contemplating corrective steps even disciplinary action against those harmed prospects of the party. Sources said certain senior leaders of the state have “briefed” the high command and Rahul Gandhi.

Jagmeet Brar, the party nominee who lost from Ferozepur has told about the activities of certain junior leaders of the district who did not put in enough effort to work for the party, sources in the party confirmed.

He has particularly mentioned the name of a person, who tried to hog limelight when the Prime Minister addressed a rally in the border belt. The focus of the party is primarily on the loss in Amritsar, Ferozepur and Bathinda, where allegations are being levelled that sitting MLAs and several senior leaders did work to the capacity or worked against the official candidates.

The Congress lost in 24 of the 44 Assembly segments where it has sitting MLAs. The party could win in 20 of the segments. In total the party won in 67 Assembly segments indicating shift in voting pattern meaning thereby the urban areas favoured the Congress.

Particularly serious is the case of Ferozepur where senior leader Jagmeet Brar lost to sitting SAD MLA, Sher Singh Ghubaya. It was the Congress that got reserved category status for the community. In Amritsar, loss of OP Soni by a few thousand votes to Navjot Singh Sidhu is also being studied carefully.

Chandigarh, May 20
Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha will be long remembered for they featured around Sikhs so much. “Sikh Prime Minister” was not only a decisive poll issue in North India, but also in the rest of the country as the Congress for the first time sought votes in the name of a Prime Ministerial candidate who did not belong to the Nehru-Gandhi family.

In fact, the election process started with a storm of protest over grant of Congress ticket to Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, whom the Sikh community continues to suspect as brains behind the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The Congress relented and withdrew their ticket.

A few of senior Congress leaders, including former Union Railway Minister Buta Singh, former Haryana minister Tara Singh, former Punjab Deputy Speaker Bir Devinder Singh and former MP Gurcharan Singh Galib, quit the party on the eve of the elections. While Galib and Bir Devinder joined the Akali Dal, the former unsuccessfully contested the election from Ludhiana.

Buta Singh, too, contested as an Independent from Jalore, a constituency in Rajasthan, which he had represented before.

Another Sikh politician, who made the headlines in the elections this time, has been controversial Inder Singh Namdhari, a qualified teacher in electronics. He has become the only Sikh from outside Punjab to be elected to the LS as an Independent from the Naxal belt of Jharkhand. He contested from Chatra and defeated Dhiraj Sahu of the Congress in a straight contest. The JDU candidate forfeited his security deposit.

Namdhari, who was born in Noshera in Gujarat, now in Pakistan, in 1942, moved to Bihar after Partition. Though he came from a business family, he took to teaching and became a lecturer in electronic engineering at the Bihar Institute of Technology, Sindri.

His love for politics, however, got him into the Rashtriya Jana Sangh in 1967. In 1980, he was elected to the Bihar assembly on BJP ticket. Eight years later, he became president of the Bihar unit of the BJP. From 1990 to 2009, he remained an MLA, both in Bihar and subsequently Jharkhand.

In 2000, he became the first Speaker of the Jharkhand assembly. In between, he had quit BJP because of differences with the party high command and joined the Janata Dal. He was Transport and Revenue Minister in Lalu Prasad Yadav government but quit after the fodder scam in 1995. In 2007, he quit the Janata Dal, resigned from his assembly seat and contested and won again, this time as an Independent. Now in 2009, he has become the first Sikh to win as an Independent from outside Punjab.

“I have been able to connect to people both in Bihar and now in Jharkhand where unfortunately politics is still linked to caste, religion, muscle power and money power,” says Namdhari.

Though the Namdhari sect, headed by former MP and Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief HS Hanspal, is considered pro-Congress, Inder has stayed away from the party of the first Sikh Prime Minister of the country.

Chandigarh, May 20
National spokesperson of the Congress and Ludhiana MP Manish Tewari has come up as the strongest candidate for the party in the state. Tewari won with the largest margin (among the Congress candidates) beating his nearest rival Gurcharan Singh Galib of the SAD by 1.13 lakh votes.

Tewari’s victory is significant for multiple reasons. Possibly because he was considered to be a strong candidate, the ruling SAD-BJP alliance organised a huge rally of the NDA in Ludhiana where all senior and important leaders of the alliance addressed the gathering. They included eight Chief Ministers, including Nitish Kumar from Bihar and Narendra Modi from Gujarat, besides the NDA prime ministerial candidate LK Advani.

An impressive performance by Tewari has raised the expectations of his supporters that he should be adjusted in the ministry. “He may not be a giant killer, but he certainly blunted the NDA impact which was created by their rally”, remarked the PCC secretary, Amarjit Singh Tikka, while hoping that Tewari may get a ministerial berth.

Another prominent Congress MLA, Jassi Khangura, has also been supporting the case of Tewari. He said Tewari should be included in the ministry as Ludhiana was an important political and industrial centre of the north. Besides, he pointed out, the people of Ludhiana had reposed unambiguous faith in the Congress and the leadership of Dr Manmohan Singh and they deserve to be acknowledged and rewarded with a ministry at least.

With rising expectations that the new ministry will have a younger look, Tewari’s supporters are appear to be quite optimistic. He is in his early forties and has lot of exposure, besides being the national spokesperson of the party, remarked Pawan Dewan, another PCC secretary and Tewari’s aide.

There are lot of hopes in Ludhiana, particularly after the Prime Minister and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, during their visit to Ludhiana, promised to the people that if Tewari wins, he would be given an important responsibility and Rahul would “monitor” him.

Ropar, May 20
After the ADC, Ropar SDM Dr Basant Garg has now been accused of abusing and beating a class four employee. In his complaint to the commissioner, driver Manjit Singh has stated that on Monday evening he had gone with the SDM and ADC to Chandigarh.

On their way back, the SDM asked Manjit Singh to stop at Sector 40-41 rotary near a nursery. As the nursery was closed, Manjit Singh turned back the car.

He alleged that the SDM rebuked him and asked him to move towards Ropar. On reaching Ropar, the ADC was dropped at his residence, where the SDM also got down and started walking towards his house.

In the meanwhile, Manjit Singh took the vehicle to the SDM’s residence and parked it inside. When he got down from the vehicle, the SDM allegedly hit him with legs and abused him. He alleged that the SDM had been behaving in the same way with drivers employed earlier with him.

Meanwhile, the Drivers’ Technical Union, Ropar, has taken up this case. Its member Harminder Singh said earlier too, Ropar ADC had hit and abused his class four employee in a similar way.

“When we raised the issue with Deputy Commissioner Priyank Bharti, he asserted to mark an inquiry and look into the matter,” he said.

A few days ago, the ADC had allegedly hit and abused Paramjit Kumar, who worked as a gardener with the zila parishad. When Paramjit apprised the DC of the matter, he was allegedly suspended in back-date orders.

Harminder Singh said the union would wait for the DC’s response till tomorrow morning. If the administration failed to take an action, the union would go on an indefinite strike.

Meanwhile, Priyank Bharti has entrusted inquiry into the case to Lakhmir Singh, SDM, Chamkaur Sahib. 

Ludhiana, May 20
The Review Board of the Delhi government, which met under the chairmanship of Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister, today commuted the life sentence of Ranjit Singh Gill, alias Kukki, awarded in the assassination of Congress MP Lalit Maken in 1985.

Confirming the development to The Tribune on the phone, Paramjit Singh Sarna, president of the Dehli Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, said the case would now be forwarded to the higher authority for a formality signature on the decision. The case was decided by the Law Committee of the state.

Sarna said: “We were perusing the case because Kukki had already spent close to 18 years in prison. In fact, he had completed 16 years of imprisonment when he was awarded life sentence in 2006”.

The petition for Kukki was moved by Khem Singh Gill, VC of PAU.

It has been pointed out that Avanti Maken, daughter of Lalit Maken, had said he be let off. Even Lalit Maken’s close kin Ajay Maken, then Speaker of the Delhi Assembly, had pleaded for freedom for Kukki in writing.

Maken was the son-in-law of late President Shankar Dayal Sharma and his name figured at number three on the list of 227 persons (prepared by the People’s Union of Civil Liberties) who had allegedly led or instigated mobs that killed Sikhs in 1984.

Kukki had fled to the US. Two years later, he was arrested and lodged in the US jail. Kukki said “I came to India after I had volunteered to come to India in February, 2003, to face the trail”.

Yesterday, Kukki submitted his final thesis for M Sc in plant breeding and genetics to the PAU.

Amritsar, May 20
The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) has recruited 60 youths to Young Brigade to check sacrilege in sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple, Akal Takht and other places of the complex.

Avtar Singh, president, SGPC, said these youths would be trained to handle emergency situations. They will have wireless sets and traditional weapons.

The SGPC has a task force of ex-servicemen, yet two attempts of sacrilege in April and May forced it to recruit youths. On April 26, Rajiv Kumar occupied the peehra (small cot), meant for Guru Granth Sahib, in the sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple.

On May 11, a drug addict, identified as Harpreet Singh Sunny,of Shivala Bhaiyan threw sarovar water on agranthi and Guru Granth Sahib at Akal Takht. 

Bathinda, May 20
Taking action over the news report appeared in The Tribune today about the high-handedness of the Punjab police, the district police chief today suspended the two cops, constable Gurmail Singh, and PHG jawan Satnam Singh, who under the influence of liquor, had assaulted certain youths here on Sunday night.

According to police sources, the SSP had marked an inquiry to Harmeek Singh Deol, SHO of the Kotwali police station.

“During the prima facie investigation, it was found the injured had reached a compromise with the accused cops under pressure,” Deol said.

Victim Chamkaur Singh of Guru Nanak Pura, along with his cousin and three friends had alleged that Gurmail threatened to book them in a dacoity case. He even tied Chamkaur to a motorcycle with his turban and dragged him to some distance. 

Chandigarh, May 20
The battle for a minor’s custody between the parents and the guardian has led the Punjab and Haryana High Court to express confidence that the courts in England would take adequate measures to ensure her safety.

The observations came after amicus curiae-cum-authority in international child custody disputes Anil Malhotra told the court of Justice Rajive Bhalla that the minor Aishley Kapoor has been abducted, while in custody of the guardian appointed by the high court of London.

The parents, Deepak and Jyoti Kapoor, hailing from Hoshiarpur, had moved the high court demanding custody of the minor. On the other hand, Seema and her husband Surinder Kumar had contended the minor had been given to them in adoption.

Demanding back the child later, the parents had filed a case in the guardian and wards court in Dasuya in Hoshiarpur district, which directed the foster parents to hand over the custody to her natural parents. Challenging the order, Seema moved the high court, which granted stay on the orders of the lower court. Subsequently, the court directed Seema to appear in the court, along with the minor. Seema, however, went to the UK, along with the minor without seeking prior permission from the court.

“Disappointed at the unfortunate development”, Justice Bhalla said the court was also “sanguine in its belief” that the court in England would ensure “her restoration to the legal jurisdiction of this court”.

Justice Bhalla asserted: “In view of the past record of Seema Kapoor, as reflected in the orders passed by the court from time to time, extra care and caution was required to ensure the security of the child. The officers in charge and the court guardians do not appear to have paid adequate attention to the safety of the child”.

Fixing July 7 as the next date of hearing, Justice Bhalla observed: “The apparent ease with which Seema Kapoor, a fugitive from justice, was able to exploit the judicial system in England is surprising”.