Mandi, November 1
A Division Green Bench of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, headed by justice Deepak Gupta and justice Sanjay Karol, in an interim order, stayed the setting up of Ganpati stone crusher proposed by some close relative of Dharampur MLA and Transport Minister Mohinder Singh Thakur at Balayana khad near Government Primary School, Chuhra Ra Balh, in Dharampur.

This judgment comes hot on the heels of the high court’s earlier order issued in July last that cancelled the government notification issued on April 27 to shift the primary school to a new site, about 10 km away.

The Division Bench passed the order on October 30 and directed the Principal Secretary Industries and 13 other respondents, including the Ministry of the Environment and Forests, to stall all proceedings in the case till further order. The Bench upheld the decision of the Single Bench which had ordered not to shift the school.

The Division Bench issued the order on the petition filed by four local residents, Jagdish Chand, Balbir, Sanjiv Kumar, Jeet Singh. They had challenged the setting of the crusher near the school.

Interestingly, owner of the stone crusher Manju Thakur is daughter-in-law of Mohinder Singh Thakur and Amit Kumar is brother of Manju Thakur.

Meanwhile, Congress leader from Dharampur Chander Shekhar and CPM leader Bhupinder have demanded the resignation of Mohinder Singh Thakur on the moral grounds as the minister had made an alleged bid to make room for the stone crusher near the school to be set up by his family members.

The government had issued the notification on April 27, 2010, to denotify the government primary school and shifting it to government school, Bhatiyar, about 10 km from the present school. But local residents took the matter to the high court, which had ordered its denotification in July last.

Refuting the charges of the Congress and the CPM, Mohinder Singh Thakur said he had not ordered to close down the school and it was functioning from Chuhra Ra Ka Bal. It was the government policy to close down school with low strength and the leaders had no issue to make.

Dharamsala, November 1
The police today arrested five students who allegedly passed without appearing in board examinations. The arrested students are Vikas and Harshwardan, both class X students, and Ravinder, class VIII student. The police arrested two students Avinesh and Muneesh last evening.

All students are arrested for their role in the scam. The students filled the examination forms but did not appear in final examinations conducted by the board. They were in league with the main accused in the case Ashwani Dogra.

Dogra used the scanned answersheets to solve the papers on behalf of the accused students. The answersheets were sent to evaluation centres and students were declared pass.

Till date, about 208 students, who passed examinations, have been identified. A list of additional 78 students has been forwarded to the education board by inquiry committee members. The board has formed a committee to scrutinise the records of the 78 students.

A few students have been found to be partners in the scam as they helped the main accused solving papers of other students.

However, the police has arrested just 15 accused students as yet. The police said they had not been able to arrest all beneficiary students in the scam as their addresses in examination forms were fake.

Many students are also juvenile and the police cannot arrest them.

Kangra, November 1
The CBSE cluster 13 inter-school volleyball championship, a three-day event, started in GAV Public School here today in which 53 teams from five states are participating.

Neeraj Kumar, SDM, Kangra, declared the championship open. Neeraj Kumar appreciated the efforts of principal of GAV Public School Sukhvinder Singh for hosting this event in this hill town.

Sukhvinder Singh said 450 boys and girls from 53 schools from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh were participating in the championship.

Students of GAV Public School here presented a colourful cultural programme before the championship started. The dance and the cultural show which depicted the cultural ethos of this hill state was lauded by the guest students.

On the inaugural day in the boys section, Aiklabe School, Kinnaur defeated Military School, Shimla; Gyan Jyoti Public School, Mohali, defeated Vivek International School, Baddi; Army School Akhnoor defeated DAV Hamirpur; Laurate Public School Shimla defeated GMM School Ambala Cantt, and DAV Dehra defeated Glaxy Public School Nagrota Surian; Doon Valley School Paonta Sahib defeated DPS Jammu and Kasauli International Public School Sonawar defeated Govt Senior Secondary Model School Sundernagar

In girls, Saint Merry School Kasauali defeated LPS School Shimla.

Shimla, November 1
The newly appointed Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kaul Singh today met the central leaders at New Delhi to seek their blessings for formally starting his second term in office on November 10.

He also met Union Ministers Anand Sharma and Virbhadra Singh and leader of the Opposition Vidya Stokes, who was also in Delhi. He said the he would take along all senior leaders of the party into confidence and run the party affairs with their cooperation.

Meanwhile, veteran party leader Sat Mahajan has been inducted in the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) from the state. At 84, he is the oldest member of the AICC. It will be his 9th term in the committee.