Karnal, June 18
A minor quarrel over villagers’ rights to common grazing land in Ghogripur blew up into a violent clash today with a son of the local sarpanch allegedly opening fire, seriously injuring one person.

The trouble erupted when “furious” villagers reached Panchayat Bhawan where the auction to lease the grazing land was to take place and forced the authorities concerned to call off the auction.

Enraged by the cancellation of the auction, Balwinder, husband of the sarpanch, Rampati, allegedly slapped a villager, Ramrati, and later both of them allegedly thrashed two more villagers - Khajani and Kamlesh. This came as a provocation for the villagers who allegedly thrashed the sarpanch, who went to hospital for a medical examination.

In the meantime, the sarpanch’s sons - Tajender and Satinder - made their entry and Tejinder allegedly fired from a pistol, seriously injuring Rajbir Mann, brother of the local media coordinator of the Congress Jaipal Mann.

Rajbir Mann, who received a bullet injury in the stomach, was referred to the PGI, Chandigarh. Infuriated by the unprovoked firing, the villagers virtually gheraoed the Civil Hospital and the sarpanch and her family members took refuge in the toilet of the trauma centre. However, the police later entered from the rear door and rescued them.

The police has booked nine persons, including sarpanch Ramwati, her husband Balwinder, sons Tajinder and Satinder, along with former sarpanch Rawat Mann, Om Prakash, Sonu, Bachan Singh and Joginder.

The villagers were opposing leasing out of 160 acres of common village land provided for grazing of animals but the local panchayat was bent upon leasing out the land.

The villagers alleged that the illegal extraction of earth on 70 to 75 acres by brick-kiln owners in connivance with panchayat functionaries had caused enormous loss the village as not a penny was spent on welfare of the village.

The villagers had given a memorandum to the SDM yesterday opposing the leasing out of the land, who assured them of appropriate action but the panchayat went ahead with auction, leading to the violence.

Chandigarh, June 18
The Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) yesterday restrained Lanco Infratech from contracting out to any other entity the 389 MW of power committed by it to Haryana till further orders.

The Haryana government in 2006 had initiated the process for procurement of power up to 2,000 MW from private power. Based on the levelised tariff for 25 years, Lanco Infratech (389 MW), PTC (300 MW) and Adani Power (1,424 MW) were selected and the letters of intent (LOI) to them were issued on July 17, 2008.

The date for signing of the power purchase agreement (PPA) was fixed for August 7, 2008, with the consent of the bidders. While Adani Power and PTC signed the PPA, Lanco, which had offered the levelised rate of Rs 2.355/kWh, did not turn up.

The Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited (HPGCL) suspected that Lanco had used the LOI issued to it by the state government to get various concessions for the union government. HPGCL MD Sanjeev Kaushal wrote to the union government to ensure that no power producer in future was able to use the LOIs issued by the states for taking concessions from it and then resile from the agreements with them.

Taking up a petition of the HPGCL, the HERC yesterday accepted the request of Lanco to adjourn the hearing for three weeks subject to the stipulation of not creating any third party rights by it on the power it had committed to Haryana.

Ajay Gupta, Additional Advocate General, Haryana, appearing for the HPGCL quoted from an interview given by the chairman of Lanco wherein he had said Lanco intended to withdraw from the commitments given to Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and other states and to revert to the merchant power sale mechanism, which was more profitable to the producers.

After exhausting all options available to it to make Lanco sign the contract, including encashing of the bid bond of Rs 11.67 crore, the HPGCL has now filed a petition before the HERC for direction to Lanco to sign the PPA for sale of power to Haryana and for restraining the company from committing the contracted power to any other party.

Chandigarh, June 18
The Haryana government today transferred 2 IAS and 4 HCS officers with immediate effect.

HS Malik will be the new director, Medical Education and Research, and also hold the additional charge to present assignments. IC Sangwan is the new secretary, Haryana Public Service Commission; Jai Singh Sangwan becomes subdivisional officer (C)-cum additional collector, Gurgaon-I; Shakti Singh goes as subdivisional officer (C)-additional collector, Bhiwani, and estate officer, HUDA, Bhiwani. Lalit Kumar has been posted as joint state transport collector and Yogesh Kumar will be the new City Magistrate, Rohtak.

Sirsa, June 18
A candidate, who had applied for registration for a PhD programme in the Commerce Department of Chaudhary Devi Lal University (CDLU) after getting a written consent of her supervisor in April 2006, has finally got her name registered after an inordinate delay of over three years.

Her father’s attempts to seek information under the RTI Act on the fate of his daughter’s application were foiled as the university allegedly provided him delayed and incorrect information.

Hearing his complaint, State Information Commissioner Meenakshi Anand Chaudhary had concluded that information supplied to the complainant was delayed and incorrect. While directing the university to withdraw the incorrect information and supply the correct one, Chaudhary had also asked the university authorities to get the issue inquired and take remedial measures under intimation to the commission by March 31.

District and Sessions Judge Hari Ram (retd), who was appointed inquiry officer by the university, held Dr DP Warne, Reader and chairperson of the Commerce Department of the university, responsible for delay in furnishing the information and for the supply of incorrect information.

RK Sehgal, registrar of the university, said neither the Vice-Chancellor nor the registrar was empowered to take any action against a reader and the matter would be taken up by the Executive Council (EC).

Chanpreet, who completed her MCom from the CDLU, obtained a written consent for registration for PhD programme from Dr Surinder Singh Kundu, lecturer in commerce, on April 18, 2006.

The chairperson of the commerce department, Dr DP Warne, wrote on her application that her case might be considered in the next fresh admissions to the PhD programme as the last date of the application, which was December 31, 2005, had expired.

However, on the recommendation of the registrar, the then Vice-Chancellor, RR Fuliya, not only directed Chanpreet’s case to be taken up in the next meeting of the Postgraduate Board of Studies, but he also issued a general direction that PhD registrations be kept open throughout the year if seats were available.

Chanpreet’s father Jaspal Singh Riar alleged that three precious years of her daughter were deliberately spoiled courtesy internal bickering.

He alleged that Warne did not organise a meeting of the department research committee (DRC) deliberately for three years to deny his daughter registration for the PhD programme only because she had chosen another teacher Dr Kundu as her guide.

Denying all allegations, Dr Warne said there was no deliberate attempt on his part to delay the registration of Chanpreet.

Kaithal, June 18
SP Sultan Singh today said the Rs 5.05 lakh robbery that took place here two days ago, was found to be fake after police investigations.

The SP said Ranbir Singh of Songal village had lodged a complaint with the police that he was robbed of Rs 5.05 lakh by a man near HUDA Colony here.

He had reportedly told the police that the man stabbed him, looted the cash and then fled in a car.

The complainant had claimed that he had brought the money from a relative in Hisar.

The SP said further police investigations revealed that the victim never went to Hisar. Ranbir, in his fresh statement, told the police that he suspected that Ramdia, Suresh, Arjan and his brother Satbir of Songal, who bore enmity towards him over some property dispute, could be behind the attack on him. However, no cash was looted from him.

The police has now deleted Section 394 (robbery) of the IPC from the case and added Sections 324 and 34 of the IPC.