NEIGHBOURHOOD

Mid Town Plaza awaits buyers
Improvement trust to hold auction on Nov 18
Tribune News Service

Lalru, October 21
Two persons were killed in separate road accidents at Lalru.Soni, a resident of Karriya village in Jammu, died after being hit by an unidentified vehicle near JCBL factory on the Ambala-Chandigarh National Highway on Tuesday night.

The body of the deceased has been handed over to the family after the post-mortem and a case has been registered.

In another incident, Darshan Singh, a resident of Banur, died on Wednesday at GMCH-32 following a road mishap. On Monday, the motorbike he was riding skidded on the newly built Lalru-Banur road near Jalalpur village. He was rushed to the GMCH-32. 

Fatehgarh Sahib, October 21
The District Consumer Redressal Forum has slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on the Sirhind Municipal Council on a complaint of a local resident.

The complainant, Gyan Chand, a resident of Sirhind, said despite depositing complete fee and all pending dues, the Municipal Council failed to clear his house plan despite repeated requests. The council officials refused to pass the plan of the complainant and said that the land did not belong to him.

The complainant, however, said he had purchased a piece of land under the municipal limits and he also possesses all the documents pertaining to the sale and purchase of his land. He had completed all the formalities in connection with the site plan and then deposited the papers with officials of the council to get it approved along with the fee.

However, on March 25, 2009, he was told that he had encroached upon a piece of land that belonged to the council. At this, the complainant approached the consumer forum. He had also showed all the documents pertaining to the ownership, sale and purchase of land. The council failed to prove that the land did not belong to the complaint and all the documents showed by him were genuine.

The forum directed the MC to pay a compensation of Rs 5,000 for mental harassment and also told to pass the map. 

Chandigarh, October 21
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that a time limit has to be fixed for students to change from one discipline to another in an educational institution, even if vacant seats were available.

The ruling by the Division Bench of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Daya Chaudhary came on an appeal filed by the PEC University of Technology against student Gursimar Iqbal Somal, alias Gursimar Somal.

The varsity had challenged an interim order of a single judge, allowing the respondent-student to be shifted from the discipline of electrical engineering to that of information technology against one of the available seats.

The student was admitted to academic session 2008-09. His claim for the shift was declined by the varsity. The single judge admitted the writ petition against the varsity’s decision and an interim direction was issued to the university to permit the shift.

Challenging the order, the varsity said the respondent did not fulfill the eligibility condition for change of discipline specified in the Rules and Procedures of University Grant Programmes. Moreover, the writ petition was filed at a very later stage.

Speaking for the Bench, Justice Daya Chaudhary asserted: “The writ petition was filed at a very late stage, as the last date for applying for change of discipline was June 26, for which a notice was also displayed on the university board, and much of his studies had already been completed and the second semester examination was likely to commence soon.”

“Keeping in view the interest of the students and the University, some time limit is to be fixed for shifting from one discipline to another and all students, including the respondent, were free to exercise their option within the prescribed time limit. The respondent did not exercise his option during that period.

If he is allowed to change the branch, other students would like to change their branches also. This practice will continue and there would be no end to it. No doubt, we have sympathy and sentiment in our mind for the career of the students, but that cannot be a ground for passing an order in relation thereto, as the respondent has no legal right and much time has already passed,” the judge said.

Chandigarh, October 21
A local court today extended the one-day police remand of Jolly, the prime accused in cash-for-job scam.

Seeking the extension of remand for three days, the police said Jolly had been using three SIM cards procured on the basis of fake identities.

The police also said he was not co-operating in the probe and was concealing facts, adding that it wanted to recover the documents on which he had procured the SIM cards.

The police added that the telecom company had returned the subscription application forms to him after it failed to verify those. He had used the SIM cards for a week and disconnected those.

The defence counsel argued that the forms had been lying with the telecom company and hence, there was no need of custodial interrogation of the accused.

The court, however, granted one-day police remand. The police booked Jolly in a case of impersonation on October 14. He was first booked in a case of cheating on September 8 for allegedly demanding Rs 4.5 lakh from Kamalpreet Kaur, a candidate who had applied for the post of teacher.

Chandigarh, October 21
The police has arrested the prime accused in the case involving a gang of robbers, who had been on a looting spree after stabbing their victims to make money for Diwali celebrations.

The alleged kingpin of the gang, Gurjit Singh, alias Deepu, surrendered in a local court yesterday and was remanded in one-day police custody.

The SHO of the sector 34 police station said two mobile phones, a motor cycle and the sharp-edged weapon with which he had stabbed people in the city last week had been recovered.

The police had earlier arrested four persons, including a juvenile, on Diwali eve, who were said to be the members of Deepu’s gang.

A taxi driver by profession, Deepu told the police that he wanted money to repair his vehicle. The accused had robbed several persons, a majority of them being menial labourers, for easy money.

His accomplices had told the police that Deepu offered them drinks and promised them to cinema for merriment, but began looting people when they reached the city at night.

Chandigarh, October 21
Three vehicles, including two cars, were reportedly stolen from various parts of the city.

Satish Kumar of Baltana reported that his Maruti car (PB 11 M 3454) was stolen from Sector 22-D on October 5.

In another incident, Kesar Singh of Sector 19-B filed a complaint alleging that his Maruti van (CH 01 X 9083) was stolen from of his residence on the intervening night of October 16 and 17.

Chandigarh, October 21
At least 19 teams out of the 25 that are likely to participate in the 55th national School games 2009-10 arrived in the city from various parts of the country today.Punjab Governor and UT Administrator SF Rodrigues will inaugurate the games at the sports complex in Sector 7 at 10.30 am tomorrow.

Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh with 205 and 200 players, respectively, are the largest contingents for the games.

The other teams to report for the games are: Chhattisgarh (145 players), Delhi (178), Gujarat (113), Haryana (188), Jharkhand (25), Karnataka (42), Maharashtra (205), Manipur (37), Orissa (55), Rajasthan (124), Tamil Nadu (107), Uttar Pradesh (103), West Bengal (59) Chandigarh (190), Assam (23), and Bihar (14) besides teams of the IPSC (12) and Vidya Bharti (144).

A meeting to review the preparations and arrangements at the venues both for the games and stay was held under the chairmanship of assistant deputy commissioner Capt PS Shergill at the control room set up at Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 8.

A meeting of the technical committee for gymnastics was also held to incorporate new amendments to the existing set of rules.

A tourism counter has also been established in the control room for the facilitation of participating teams that plan to visit various tourists spots of the city, including Rose Garden, Rock Garden and Sukhna Lake, during their stay here.

School Game Federation of India vice-president MN Nanda visited various schools where players had been put up and expressed satisfaction over the arrangements, including board and lodging, security, transportation, etc. made by the Chandigarh administration.

SDM (South) Prerna Puri along with officials of the department of education and sports and 11 managers of various participating teams were among those present at the meeting.

Chandigarh, October 21
Union minister of sports Dr MS Gill will lay the foundation stone of the state-of-the-art indoor shooting range at Panjab University campus on October 23.

Talking to Chandigarh Tribune, PU sports director Dr CS Grewal said Dr Gill had confirmed his visit and would lay the foundation stone around 3.15 pm on Friday.

He said maps and sites of the shooting range, which is to be set up at a cost of Rs 1.5 crore, had been approved by the building committee of the university.

He said the 10-metre range would be centrally air-conditioned, besides being soundproof with 33 targets.

Dr Grewal said indoor shooting range would also have armoured room, strong room and other basic facilities for players practising at the range.

He said the cost of construction of the range could touch Rs 3 crore as the prices of construction material and other state-of-the-art machinery to be installed at the range had gone up. 

Chandigarh, October 21
The greens continued to play tough resulting in high scores as 18-year-old local lad Abhijeet Chadha maintained a one-stroke lead despite carding a four over par 76 at the midway stage of the LG Samarvir Sahi Chandigarh Open at the Chandigarh Golf Club here today.One stroke behind the leader were Simarjeet Singh, Gagan Verma and Kapurthala’s 15-year-old Ashbeer Singh Saini who tied for the second slot at 149.

Thirtyfour-year-old Simarjeet found his touch carding the day’s best card of one over par 73 on the difficult greens. Both Ashbeer and Gagan carded rounds of two over 74. One more stroke behind the three were Kapurthala’s Immamul Haque and Pawan Kumar, who were tied fourth at 150.

Overnight joint leader Rahul Bajaj fell down the leaderboard with a second-round 81 and is now tied for 13th place.

With putting remaining the most difficult task on the greens the cut was declared at 16 over 160.

Third-ranked amateur Arshdeep Tiwana of Hyderabad fell by the wayside.

With the greens playing tough and a mix of young and the experienced within striking distance of each other, the competition will get tougher in the next two rounds.

Abhijeet Chadha could have been a clear leader had he not bungled with two triple bogeys on the ninth and 15th after sinking birdies on the fourth and 13th.

Chadha said: “I had two triple bogeys today. In fact, I made a birdie and a triple bogey each on the front nine and the back nine and that was the only action on my card.”

Fifteen-year-old Ashbeer, still on the hunt for his maiden win on the senior circuit, looked to be heading down the leaderboard as he was four-over for the round after the first nine holes, but he reversed the flow with three birdies on his way back in.

A bogey on his finishing hole ensured that he had to be content with second place on the leaderboard at the halfway stage.

“It was very silly of me to drop a shot on the last hole but now I am just one shot back so I don’t think I have lost much ground,” said Ashbeer.

Simarjeet Singh said: “It’s been a really long time since I won on tour. So long back that I can’t even remember where that win came so I hope I can play well enough this week for the title.” The 34-year-old last won on tour three years back in 2006.

Leading scores: 148 Abhijeet Chadha (72-76); 149 Simarjeet Singh (76-73), Ashbeer Singh Saini (75-74) and Gagan Verma (75-74); 150 Pawan Kumar (76-74) and Immamul Haque (74-76); 151 L. Selvadurai (77-74) and Abhinav Lohan (76-75); 152 Sanjeev Singh (77-75), Aman Guron (77-75), Manav Das (75-77) and Vikram Rana (73-79).

Chandigarh, October 21
The Mohali District Table Tennis Championship will be organised on October 28 to select probables from Mohali for the Punjab State Table Tennis Championship.

In a press release, Karamjit Singh, media adviser, Mohali District Table Tennis Association, said the championship would be held at Manav Mangal Smart School, Sector 64, Mohali. He said the matches would be held in under-12 cadet boys and girls, under-14 sub-junior boys and girls, under-17 junior boys and girls and men and women singles categories. Players will be short-listed on the basis of their performance in the tournament to represent Mohali district in the Punjab State Table Tennis Championship being held from November 11 to 16 at Ferozepur. Those interested in state-level competition can deposit their entries with Rajeev Kaushal and Harmanpreet Singh, secretary and joint secretary, by October 26. — TNS