Faridabad, May 24
A large number of old-age pensioners blocked BK Chowk and Dabua Chowk here today in protest against the delay in distribution of pension. The senior citizens also blocked the NH-1and 2 Chowk in the district for over two hours.

They alleged that they had not received the pension for March and April.

The pensioners alleged that even though Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda showed interest in enhancing the pension amount in the past, a section of the government officials appeared to be lackluster in distributing it. The blockades disrupted traffic at several places.

According to District Welfare Officer Satyavan, the delay was on the account of introduction of a new scheme of the Social Justice and Empowerment Department to distribute the pension money. The pension was earlier distributed manually by the department through the Municipal Corporation, Faridabad. Pensions till February were distributed under the manual scheme.

The Social Welfare Officer said amidst allegations of bungling in the distribution of pension money, the department decided to distribute it through the banking system.

He said some miscreants used to fabricate documents and drew pension under fictitious names. To stop the malpractice, the department engaged Axis Bank for distribution in Faridabad district.

There are about 65,000 old-age pensioners in the district. Smarts cards have been issued to 32,000 of them and preparation of smarts cards for others is in progress. The entire process will be completed by June.

However, senior citizens alleged that the government did not make them aware about the change in the system and officials of Axis Bank were not transparent in explaining the cause for the delay. 

Sirsa, May 24
Irked by the alleged police inaction in a case of rape for over 20 days, hundreds of villagers blocked the Sirsa-Ellenabad road near Mangala village and two other places in the district today.

The villagers, many of them women, were demanding the arrest of a youth, named as an accused in the case.

Two youths had allegedly taken away a teenaged girl from the village in their car to a tubewell on May 3, where they allegedly raped her.

“The police rounded up both Harjinder and Baljinder, whom the girl had named in her statement, but later the police released the latter due to extraneous reasons,” alleged villagers Sukhdev Singh, Ram Kishan, Hakam Devi and Ram Piari.

The villagers alleged that they had met the SP a number of times during the past 20 days, but every time they have got nothing but assurances that the matter was being probed.

The irate protesters also smashed windowpanes of an ambulance.

Efforts by Dabwali DSP BL Yadav, Ellenabad DSP Ravinder Kumar, tehsildar Rajender Kumar and other officials failed to move the villagers, who insisted on the immediate arrest of the accused.

A large number of villagers from Mangala, Natar, Salarpur, Modiakhera, Shahidanwali and Bhambhoor assembled at Maglala and blocked the Sirsa-Ellenabad road in the morning.

Another group of villagers blocked traffic near Salarpur village.

Shops on both sides of the road were also closed when the villagers were protesting on the road.

Later, the villagers shifted their roadblock near the bus stand of Bhambhoor village.

Traffic remained paralysed till late in the evening near Bhamboor village.

Rohtak, May 24
The Sarv Karamchari Sangh, Haryana, representating state government employees, has announced to step up its agitation in support of its demands, including pay grades equivalent to those of the Central Government staff. It has decided to gherao the state Assembly during the monsoon session this year. The sangh will hold a statewide strike on June 8 and organise a two-day demonstration at the office of the Deputy Commissioner here on June 25 and 26 as part of its stir.

Stating this, a spokesperson for the sangh said here today that employees’ associations affiliated with the sangh had unanimously decided to submit a memorandum to all political parties in order to exert pressure on the state government, which, he alleged, had not met their demands despite agreeing to these in principle.

According to the sangh, the state government has neither formed any policy regarding part-time and contractual staff nor has it taken any measures to remove the anomalies in the existing pay structure so far.

The sangh claimed that instead of working out a permanent policy regarding the services of employees in various departments, including Education, Health, Transport, Power, Tourism, Forest, Aviation, Animal Husbandary and Public Health, the state government had followed a programme of disbanding these departments in order to privatise these through the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

“The PPP model is actually a tool to hand over the profit-earning departments to private hands as the companies benefiting from the outsourcing policy are owned by kin of those in power,” the sangh alleged. The sangh described the privatisation policy as anti-people and dangerous to the concept of a welfare state.

The demands of the sangh include regularisation of ad hoc staff, filling of all vacant posts and an end to the policy of outsourcing work in all departments. 

Chandigarh, May 24
Coming down heavily on the Haryana Public Service Commission for practically reserving 66 per cent seats for men in the selection of school-cadre lecturers, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today asked it to call three times the number of short-listed candidates irrespective of the gender. The directions by Justice Mahesh Grover came on a bunch of 75 petitions largely filed by women candidates. In one of the petitions filed through counsel Ram Kumar Malik, the petitioners had contended that 33 per cent seats were reserved for women. However, in effect 67 per cent seats were reserved for men.

The candidates contended that after the preliminary process of selection, three times the number of short-listed men and women were called separately. In the process, women with higher merit found themselves being left out, while men with comparatively lower merit found themselves on the list of selected candidates.

Justice Grover was of the opinion that the matter already stood covered by a judgment of a Division Bench and asked the public service commission to together call three times the number of selected candidates irrespective of the gender.

Earlier, in August 2010, the HC had found fault with the way the HPSC was carrying out the process of recruiting lecturers in the school cadre. Its advertisement inviting applications had failed to find favour with the HC. The advertisement had mentioned reservation of posts for both women as well as men. The Bench comprising Justice MM Kumar and Justice Ritu Bahri had ruled: “The department concerned may direct the commission to issue a corrigendum by correcting the advertisement dated June 18, 2009.”

The Bench then had also taken note that 33 per cent of the posts had been reserved for women and 67 per cent for men for posts of lecturer in the school cadre (Group-B). 

Chandigarh, May 24
Admitting a petition seeking directions to the state of Haryana to follow justifiable and rational criteria while making recommendations for nomination to the HCS (Eexecutive branch), the Punjab and Haryana High Court today directed the continuation of stay in the matter.

The Bench of Justice M.M. Kumar and Justice Gurdev Singh also fixed July 11 as the next date of hearing in the case. The high court, on the previous date of hearing, had placed under suspension further action on the basis of notification dated January 28 and the circular letter dated February 2.

In his petition, Anand Prakash, the man behind the justice-for-Ruchika movement, had earlier alleged that the special recruitment process to appoint HCS (executive branch) officers through nomination was being carried out for providing backdoor entry to the favorites of the state government.

The state, vide the notification and the circular, has called for “recommendations for nomination for filling the posts of HCS (EB) from registers A-I, A-II and C from the nominating authorities by way of special recruitment”.

Seeking directions for setting aside and quashing the notification and the circular, counsel Gurminder Singh claimed these were in violation of the statutory rules and issued without following the process as prescribed by law.

Elaborating, he asserted: The main challenge in the present writ petition is completely arbitrarily and discriminatory process being adopted by the state government while making nominations to the HCS for filling almost 33 per cent of the vacancies in the service.

Gurminder Singh added: “The petitioner has come to know that the age has been extended to 55 years as on January 1 to accommodate the present personal secretary to the Chief Minister, Randhir Singh, who cannot be eligible under the rules.

“Therefore, the qualifications have been tailormade to suit him and other such candidates. Further, the petitioner has come to know that in certain cases, where the officers did not have sufficiently good record of service, the service record has been upgraded before making the nominations which is clearly a motivated and mala fide exercise.” 

Yamunanagar, May 24
A house in Professor Colony here collapsed following a blast here today. The cause behind the blast, which damaged 75 per cent of the house, is yet to be ascertained.

Police sources said the house belonged to timber merchant Satyajit, who was staying with his wife and children.

The house owner said they heard a blast around 5 am while they were asleep.

Senior police officers arrived at the spot and inspected the house.

A forensic team was also called, but it could not arrive to any conclusion about the cause behind the blast.

The LPG cylinder in the kitchen was found to be intact, sources added. A team of the fire brigade was also summoned.

The blast could have been caused by a choked sewer line. The police is investigating the matter.

Panipat, May 24
The district police has booked three persons, including a Sub-Inspector and a constable, on a charge of falsely implicating a Dalit girl.

The girl had allegedly been raped and when she approached the police with a complaint she was booked on various charges.

According to sources, the girl, a resident of Sodhapur village, who worked as an insurance agent in a private company, had allegedly been raped by Narinder.

Narinder had kidnapped the girl on the pretext of getting an insurance policy from her.

He called up the girl on May 14 and asked her to meet him at Ram Lal Chowk. When she reached there, Narinder asked her to get into a Scorpio vehicle. He was accompanied by another person.

They took her to Gari Sikanderpur village. The girl was drugged there and kept in illegal confinement for two days and raped repeatedly.

The two brought her back to Panipat where she raised an alarm.

The passersby got hold of the accused and handed them over to the police. But instead of registering a case against the accused persons, the policemen connived with them and booked the girl on various charges. She was even produced in a court where she had to seek bail.

The girl then sent a complaint to the district police chief, who ordered a probe into the allegations. After the probe the police registered a case against SI Jai Kishan and constable Iswar Singh along with Narinder. 

Gurgaon, May 24
Finally, the state authorities have taken some initiative to address the contentious issue of multiplicity of authorities in Gurgaon.

Local residents are subjected to grave difficulties and inconvenience due to the prevalent confusion over the jurisdiction of a government department regarding the provision of a given service/facility. The issue has also been highlighted in the media organisations.

Chief Secretary Urvashi Gulati today directed Gurgaon Divisional Commissioner TK Sharma during a video-conferencing session to ensure that the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) and HUDA had separate citizens’ charters, mentioning clearly which authority has to be approached for a particular service.

A number of other issues and projects pertaining to Gurgaon like the problem of traffic congestion, city bus service, construction of a new gymkhana club and auditoriums in Gurgaon and a mini-secretariat in Sohna etc were also discussed during the session.

Gulati observed that since Gurgaon was developing at a rapid pace, a new gymkhana club was required for the new sectors, besides separate auditoriums for people residing in different areas of the city.

The matter of certain private colonisers not providing the promised services/facilities was also brought to the notice of the Chief Secretary. Sharma pointed out that at times, such things caused problems of law and order but the district administration had no control over these builders.

To this, Gulati said the licence conditions of the builders should be uploaded on the website so that the residents as well as local officials could ask the builders to fulfil the conditions.

About the problem of traffic congestion in Gurgaon, Gulati asked the local authorities to take concrete steps for traffic management and launch campaigns for challaning the violators of traffic rules.

Regarding the commissioning of city bus service in Gurgaon, Gulati asserted that the Transport Secretary would visit Gurgaon to identify a site for the local bus stand. 

Fatehabad, May 24
Enjoying “kulfi” on the roadside in the evening proved costly for a newlywed woman when a police Gypsy knocked her down and then sped away with the vehicle.

The woman, Geeta, was rushed to a private hospital with a swollen foot, where she was told that she had torn her muscles. The victim’s brother-in-law, Pawan Grover, alleged the Gypsy driver was reversing the vehicle when the incident occurred.

“When we requested the Gypsy driver to shift Geeta to the General Hospital, he started using foul language and sped away with his vehicle,” he alleged.

He alleged that the police refused to register their complaint though they had obtained a medico-legal certificate of the injuries.

Madan Lal, SHO of the City police station, however, maintained that the Gypsy had merely touched the woman while the driver was reversing the vehicle.

He maintained that no action was warranted against the cops. 

Hisar, May 24
A man, a woman and a child were burnt alive when they were trapped in their car which caught fire after colliding with a trailer near Dhirenwas village about 15 km from here today.

The deceased have not yet been identified as the bodies were charred beyond recognition. They were believed to be father, mother and child. The police said they were trying to identify them by tracking the registration number of the car.

The car was not fitted with a gas kit.