Haridwar, November 30
Opposing the lottery allocation of plots, a protest by small-scale traders at the Municipality Committee (MC) Executive Office (EO) turned violent on its second day. Alleging bias and flouting of rules, the protesting traders ransacked EO BL Arya’s house after their repeated attempts to meet him failed.

Supported by the Congress and led by Small-scale Traders Association president Sanjay Chopra, the agitating traders alleged bias from the BJP-led MC towards a few affluent traders in the allocation of the plots.

The police later registered a case against six traders and 20 unidentified persons on the EO’s complaint at the city kotwali.

In his complaint, EO BL Arya alleged that the accused threatened him, ransacked his house and used caste-based remarks. Arya’s wife was taken to hospital as she fell unconscious after the protesters ransacked their house. In view of the situation, there was heavy deployment of police personnel outside the hospital.

Prior to his arrest, speaking to The Tribune Sanjay Chopra said the lottery procedure was pre-decided and directions of the Supreme Court were flouted openly. Citing the court directives, Chopra said only 40 shops were to be made, but in the allocation procedure, via lottery system, nine shops were given the plots. This meant that the MC violated the Apex Court’s directive.

Meanwhile, Arya has refuted the claims of the protesters saying the whole allocation bid was unbiased and children took out the bid paper pieces so that no one should have any doubt, whatsoever, in this regard.

Councillor Dinesh Joshi termed it as direct pressure from the state Cabinet Minister, who is also local legislator on whose directive 19 additional names were allocated in the list, who are pro-BJP.

Surprisingly, MC Chairman Kamal Johra said his consent was not taken during the process and the whole working had been done under the guidance of the EO, so he could not comment on the additional names being allocated in the list.

Nainital, November 30
Following the destruction of the Right to Information (RTI) Act papers in the Collectorate fire of October 5, District Magistrate Shailesh Bagauli has requested applicants to send across fres applications or first appeals to the departments concerned.

Bagauli has requested the applicants to submit the applications and the first appeal prayer to the related departments so that officials can act on them at the earliest and provide them the required information well on time.

A part of the Collectorate Building, which is of immense heritage value and is an excellent example of Gothic art, was burnt to ashes due to a ‘short circuit’.

Although the records pertaining to the British era were saved, the RTI documents could not be retrieved. Sceptics have been raising eyebrows over the burning of the entire RTI records since the applications were about matters that are controversial and ‘could embarrass the top shots in the government’.

Nainital, November 30
The Uttarakhand Minorities Commission has expressed its annoyance with officials of certain departments for their laxity, which is leading to the harassment of the poor. The commission has also expressed displeasure at the failure of the officials in turning up at the hearings of the commission and instead sending their subordinates for the same.

These views were conveyed by the commission members, who held a hearing for 16 cases pertaining to Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital districts at Rudrapur. Those present were Chairman Sukhdev Singh Namdhari, Vice-Chairman Mazhar Naeem Nawab, along with members Anis Alam, MK Otani, Irfan Ali, Barit Singh and Renuka Dean. The hearings in certain cases were postponed till December 9 and would be held in Dehradun.

The commission has ordered issuing of warrants against a Forest Department official from Ramnagar, Ashok Tewari, for not making payments of Rs 1.11 lakh to Salim Saifi, who had constructed his house. Similarly, the District Magistrate of Udham Singh Nagar has been asked to present a report within a fortnight on non-allotment of a house to Atiq Vishal of Pantnagar.

In another case, the commission has ordered the Nagar Palika at Kashipur to get an encroachment on the piece of land belonging to Narendra Kaur of Katoratal removed within the next 15 days.

Dehradun, November 30
The Dehradun District Court witnessed pandemonium today as Judicial Magistrate-1 Arvind Nath Tripathi allegedly made harsh remarks against an advocate, who was appearing for a legal case in his court.

The Dehradun Bar Association (DBA) has decided to boycott his court unless he apologises to the association and promises to act with propriety in future. The matter got a little complicated in the absence of District Judicial Magistrate (DJM) Indira Ashish, who is not keeping well these days. Acting DJM Pradeep Pant allegedly expressed his inability to take action on his own against the judge in question. The DBA is going to meet tomorrow to decide about the future course of action on the issue.

DBA Secretary Rajiv Sharma said the advocates have been putting up with offencive behaviour of Tripathi for more than two years, ever since he took charge of his position. “Judge Arvind Nath Tripathi had been deciding on the matters arbitrarily, giving the least regard to the merit of the legal cases. He had been mouthing filthy language against advocates, without caring for their seniority, in the courtroom. We placed the matter before the former and current DJ as well, but no action has been taken so far. Our patience has finally run out,” he said.

Another senior lawyer of the District Court Rahul Raghuvanshi said recent unruly behaviour of Tripathi with a much-respected advocate had proved to be the last nail in the coffin, due to which they all had mutually decided to boycott his court, regardless of pressure from higher-ups.

Raghuvanshi also bypassed the argument of the acting DJM saying he was just trying to brush the matter under the carpet, though he possessed enough power to take action against Tripathi. Until the matter is sorted out, poor litigants are going to suffer from the wrangle between the Judicial Magistrate and the advocates.

President of the Bar Council Razia Begh said it would not take long to solve this issue, as in the past, too, the DBA had resorted to the same tactic to contain the rowdy behaviour of the judges against the advocates. She remembered having made former ADJ Tyagi apologise to the Bar Association for his misbehaviour and, in another case, the judge was transferred out of the city.

Begh said, “It is sad that Tripathi had been constantly insulting lawyers before their clients in the court rooms, despite apologising for his misbehaviour earlier. Our association believes in maintaining good relations between the bar and the judiciary, but such an unsavoury incident does spoil the rapport of the court.” She hoped to find a solution by Wednesday, when the association will sit together to moot over the issue. 

Dehradun, November 30
Besides delving into several diseases afflicting the brain, western scientists are also open to the idea of undertaking studies of the effect of the moon on the brain that have often remained the domain ancient Indian studies.

Speaking at the International Symposium on recent advances in Neuro Science Research, Prof Chandradhar Dwivedi, Head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, South Dakota (USA), said lunar effects on the mind were also arousing the interest of scientists. “Earlier it was an issue that was left to ayurveda, but now scientists are ready to take up research, though its effect yet to be proved,” Dr Dwivedi said.

Similarly, he said, anxiety, stress and trauma had altogether different meanings in medicine, but a person’s ability to withstand stress depended mostly on his genetic make-up.

Significantly, Dr Gavin Steward Dawe, Associated Professor, Department of Pharmacology Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Singapore, said there should be cooperation between basic science and clinical research to maximise approach to medical treatment.

“There is room for cooperation between the two to arrive at a medical treatment that is beneficial to the patient,” he said.

He also said early childhood experience had much to do how a person tackled stress.

Dr Gavin Steward earlier gave a talk on Alzheimer’s disease that is generally associated with senility and ageing. 

Haridwar, November 30
Groundwater recharging is the need of the hour. This was stated by experts at a five-day workshop on lake eutrophication, remediation and restoration, which was held at the Pollution Control Research Institute of Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited (BHEL), Ranipur, here.

BHEL’s Executive Director DK Mody highlighted the significance of lakes as they provide drinking water and recharge the groundwater. “Due to global warming and improper conservation of natural water resources, there is an immediate necessity to look into water conservation,” he said.

“Many lakes have either vanished or shrunk because of industrial and housing activities. Focused approach to restore these natural resources is the need of the hour. Survey of all water bodies and categorising these on region basis will enable us to evolve suitable remedies for the problem,” he said. He also lauded the efforts of the Central Pollution Control Board in this regard.

PCRI Head Khalid Zaheer said, “Safe drinking water is a fundamental human need. Contaminated water has adverse effect on the health of the human beings.”

Kumaon Additional Commissioner and secretary of the Nainital Lake Development Authority HC Semwal urged the delegates to inspect the Nainital Lake for more inputs on the ways to conserve such lakes. He also made a presentation during the programme on measures taken for the management of the Nainital Lake.

Participants from various State Pollution Control Boards of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Pondichery, Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, Nainital Lake Development Authority and Department of Chemical Oceanography, Cochin, and Central Pollution Control Board attended the seminar.

Dehradun, November 30
Lieut-Gen SP Tanwar, General Officer Commanding, Uttar Bharat Area, laid the foundation stone of the new state-of-the-art building of the Military Hospital, Dehradun, here yesterday. He visited the Indian Military Academy (IMA) to review the ongoing MES construction projects.

During his visit, Tanwar inspected the Field Survey Engineer group and attended the graduation ceremony of the Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC).

He appreciated the good work and efforts put in by all and conveyed his compliments. He emphasised on the security and encouraged them to remain the prime focus at all times. 

Nainital, November 30
The Uttarkhand High Court (HC) has reserved its judgement in the high-profile Citurgia Bio-Chemicals Land-Use Case. The hearing concluded here in the morning today. The court decided to reserve the orders after hearing all parties in the matter.

The renowned case revolving around an alleged land scam in Rishikesh was heard the second day in continuation by a Bench comprising Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice VK Bisht.

The counsel for the petitioner Avtar Singh Rawat prayed before the court that there is a nexus at work across the state promoting misuse of public land that needs to be stopped. He requested the court to get the Citurgia matter investigated by an independent agency.

He prayed that the court set a precedent so that the misuse of public land comes to an end. Alleging that land worth Rs 400 crore had been handed over for a paltry sum of Rs 15 crore, Rawat handed over a copy of the existing circle rates in Hardwar district for the court’s consideration.

The hearing continued for two hours before the court announced that the decision was being reserved.

Over the past two days, hectic out-of-court activity was visible among the battery of officials that had landed here from Dehradun to be present during the hearings and report everything back in detail.

The officials, particularly the junior rung ones, were a harried lot who burnt midnight oil to help their lawyers defend the government in the matter. They worked late into the night drafting papers which were faxed to Dehradun for the approval of the higher-ups and faxed back for submission in the court if required.

The government at both the administrative and the political levels has been showing signs of nervousness fearing an adverse decision in the case. Mediapersons have been getting continuous calls from the state capital with officials and political ‘protégés’ said to be close to the CM asking them what would be the outcome in the case and what would be the political fallout.