Chandigarh, April 30
A CBI court today issued a notice to Justice Nirmal Yadav (retd), a former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, directing her to appear in person on May 18 for a hearing in the cash-at-judge’s-door case, in which she has been named an accused by the CBI in its charge sheet. Besides, the other four accused have also been directed to appear in person in the court on that day.

It will be for the first time that Justice Yadav will appear in person as an accused in court ever since the case first rocked the judiciary in 2008. The CBI had field a charge sheet in the court against Justice Yadav in March this year.

During a resumed hearing of the case today, the defence counsel told the court that the CBI had not followed the provisions at the time of filing the charge sheet. Sanjeev Bansal, a co-accused and former Haryana Additional Advocate-General, said the CBI had not followed its own procedure for filing a charge sheet and that the same shall not be accepted.

The court, however, stated that such arguments could be put forth before the court during a later stage.

On March 4, the day Justice Yadav retired as a judge of the Uttarakhand High Court, the CBI had filed a charge sheet. The other four named in the charge sheet are advocate Sanjiv Bansal, also former Additional Advocate-General of Haryana; Delhi-based hotelier Ravinder Singh; Nirmal Singh and Rajiv Gupta.

The case first came to light on August 13, 2008, when a packet containing Rs 15 lakh was wrongly delivered at the Sector 11 residence of Justice Nirmaljit Kaur, a judge of the High Court. Justice Nirmaljit Kaur reported the matter to the police following which it came to light that the money was actually meant for Justice Nirmal Yadav. The case was then handed over to the CBI. 

Karnal, April 30
A 60-year-old woman gave birth to twins here years after having lost all hopes of becoming a mother. This was made possible by gynaecologists at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital here, who helped Jagdish, a resident of Kurukshetra, give birth to healthy twins (boy weighing 2.7 kg and girl 2.5 kg) in the second test tube baby attempt through assisted hatching.

According to doctors, it was a peculiar case of zona pellucida and the patient was suffering from hypertension and abnormal liver with a diseased uterus and damaged endometrium.

Earlier, during Jagdish’s first pregnancy, the baby had died in the eight month and later she had four miscarriages, following which she could not conceive. She had lost all hopes of becoming a mother until three years ago, when she was put under treatment at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. Dr Prabjot Kaur, who treated Jagdish, said patients should come to the doctor as early as possible, as delivery in old age involved high risk, miscarriage, premature rupture, premature labour and retired growth.

Jind, April 30
Members of the Vaish community here have objected to the use of the surname, Gupta, in an advertisement on tax evasion by the Income Tax Department.

They have asked the government to either withdraw the advertisement or remove the objectionable part from it immediately failing which they will be forced to launch an agitation. A memorandum in this regard has been submitted to the government.

A meeting of the community was held under the banner of the All-India Aggarwal Samaj here today. “The meeting adopted a resolution seeking the removal of the surname, Gupta, from the advertisement in which a family, accused of tax evasion, is shown to have this surname. The advertisment is being run on nearly all TV channels,” said Raj Kumar Goyal, chief of the state unit of the samaj.

He said representatives of various organisations from all parts of the state took part in the meeting today. Describing it as demoralising for the community and in bad taste, he said it had depicted the community in poor light.

The memorandum said the Vaish community was hard working and its members paid taxes honestly and this advertisement was unacceptable to the community.

“The government had to withdraw a similar kind of advertisement several years ago and the department has gone on to repeat a similar mistake again,” claimed Sawar Garg, an office-bearer of the Aggarwal Samaj.

He described the advertisement as a “direct attack on the community” and said they would be forced to launch an agitation if their demand was not met soon.

Panchkula, April 30
Rejecting the Haryana Government’s notification on UGC pay scales, the Haryana Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organisations (HFUCTO) today decided to protest against the gross violations of the UGC/HRD recommendations.

Dr Pradeep Chauhan, president of the HFUCTO, said an emergency meeting of the association would be held at the office of the Kurukshetra University Teachers’ Association on May 5 to decide the further course of action.

He said recommendations by a committee of three vice chancellors to the state government in this regard were a breach of trust despite several assurances given by the Chief Minister.

He alleged that the government had backtracked from its promise to implement the UGC pay scales and recommendations in a composite and undiluted form.

Alleging that the recommendations have become a victim of bureaucratic handling and arbitrariness in Haryana, Dr Chauhan said these were unacceptable to the university and college teachers of the state. He demanded that the report submitted by the committee of three vice chancellors to the state government should be made public.

He alleged that the government had deviated on the issues of advance increments for higher education like MPhil, PhD and LLM at the entry level or while in service as mentioned under Clause 7 of the MHRD/UGC notification dated December 31, 2008.

SIRSA: The Haryana Government’s notification on pay scales of university and college teachers has evoked a mixed response from the teaching community.

While the teachers have hailed most of the announcements made by the state government in its comprehensive notification announced yesterday, they rue that the recommendations of the UGC and the Ministry of Human Resources Development have not been accepted in its true spirit.