Jalandhar, March 31
The administrative staff of the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) was tight-lipped after key members of the institute were indicted in the murder case of Harpreet Kaur, daughter of Bibi Jagir Kaur.

The administrative staff members denied having information about the role of Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi and Paramjit Singh Raipur at PIMS. Interestingly, PIMS was to promote medical tourism in collaboration with Gravesham Borough at an event today, which was postponed following the controversy.

Mayor of Gravesham Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi is the son of Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi, one of those indicted in the case.

While the administrative staff at PIMS failed to give the reason of the postponement of the event, they said they had no idea about the position of Dhesi and Raipur, who, the staff said regularly frequented PIMS.

Notably, people close to the Badals hold eminent positions at PIMS. Surjit Singh Rakhra, the Rural Health Minister, is the president-cum-chairman of the PIMS Medical and Education Charitable Society while his close associate Paramjit Singh Raipur and Raipur’s relative Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi are members of its private 
consortium.

Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi was also present at many PIMS events. While she was one of the dignitaries seated on the stage at an AIDS CME held at the institute last year, she was also present at a ‘path’ held at the institute to celebrate the first Diwali of the institute’s students.

When contacted, PIMS Medical Superintendent Dr SK Bansal said: “I have no idea about the post of Mrs Dhesi and Mr Raipur.” Talking about the postponement of the medical tourism meet, Bansal maintained, “I am not aware about it.”

While they are the members of the private body of PIMS, KD Singh, director of the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences Society, which is the PIMS’ government supervisory wing, said: “Dhesi and Raipur are members of the PIMS’ private consortium. They were chosen as per government norms.” He denied comment on further queries. 

Medical tourism meet postponed

The medical tourism meet at PIMS postponed following the controversy. Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, the Mayor of Gravesham and son of one of the co-conspirators in the Harpreet case Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi, was to hold the meet on Saturday. Rural Health Minister and president-cum-chairman of the PIMS Medical and Education Charitable Society Surjit Singh Rakhra’s close associate Paramjit Singh Raipur, another co-conspirators in the case, and his relative Dalwinder Kaur Dhesi are members of the PIMS private consortium.

Jalandhar, March 31
Morning walkers at Leisure Valley and Rose Garden in Burlton Park are a disgruntled lot. They say the debris from dismantled buildings in the city was being dumped by the Municipal Corporation authorities around the park, turning it onto an eyesore.

Mounds of rubble lie around the entry to the park. The park has several visitors all through the day. While mornings and evenings witness a huge rush, people from surrounding colonies keep on visiting the park throughout the day.

Pardeep Saini, a visitor, said: "Officials need to spare the few existing greenbelts around so that there at least is some breathing place for residents. They need to seriously look for some other dumping site or some alternative to deal with the rubble."

A group of residents around the area have even formed a Save Burlton Park Committee. Harish Sharma, its general secretary, said the rubble collected after clearing jhuggis at Gujral Nagar had been dumped around Leisure Valley. "Even the debris left after demolishing the cricket stadium there has been piled up around the valley," he added.

When contacted, PS Gill, Executive Engineer, Horticulture, said: "No one has contacted me with the problem. I will get it checked and try to do the needful." 

Jalandhar, March 31
Its' by sheer grit and determination that a 32-year-old woman took a legal recourse to take revenge from her 'absentee husband' living abroad and her in-laws, who tried to get off with the things by even selling off her land attached in the case, against court orders.

The victim, Kulwinder Kaur, a resident of New Colony here, got some reprieve as the district administration helped her take possession of the land at Partapura village a fortnight ago, on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Wife of Baljit Singh, who lives in the US, she had filed a contempt of court petition against her father-in-law Tasminder Singh.

The administration, including Deputy Commissioner Priyank Bharti and SDM-1 Iqbal Singh Sandhu, are all praise for the young woman who has stood as an example for many others like her in the NRI-dominated Doaba region. Even more interesting, it is to read the copy of the perhaps emotionally charged-up judge Justice Surya Kant, who heard the case.

"There are hundreds of unnoticed victims like the petitioner. The offenders living abroad have got a tendency to disown the relationship and to subject the victims to protracted trials. Such ill-conceived notions have to be curbed through extraordinary measures only. Since the petitioner's husband has fled and the law is yet to catch hold of him, she cannot be consoled by illusionary relieves in the form of one after the other court orders in her favour unless some independent source of interim maintenance is made available to her at the cost of respondent and his family. The petitioner has not been paid any interim maintenance so far. The sale consideration received by her through offending the sale transaction has also been gulped by her father-in-law alone."

"In view of the Article 215 of the Constitution, I direct the District Magistrate, Jalandhar, to dispossess her father-in-law from the remaining land owned by him and entrust its possession to the petitioner and make necessary entries to this effect in the revenue record. The petitioner shall be entitled to perpetual possession of the land as source of her livelihood. It being her first charge on the land, her in-laws shall have no right to sell, mortgage, transfer or create any type of hurdle."

The judge even awarded her father-in-law six month civil imprisonment. "Subject to his right to appeal or expiry of the period for the same, he has been directed to surrender before CJM Jalandhar, who shall take him into custody", he wrote.

Kulwinder Kaur had written in her complaint that she got married in June 2001 and it was just after two week's time that her husband left. "Thereafter, he filed a joint petition for divorce in the US, though I was never taken to the US to file any such petition. My husband and his entire family are settled in the US while my father-in-law has been on an occasional visit to India, after having been impleaded as a party-respondent in the criminal complaint filed by her. The said immovable property was attached in the case I had filed under section 12 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005," she had pleaded.

As her father-in-law reportedly tried to sell the property by tampering with the revenue record entries, she even got a separate FIR registered on the matter in August 2011. The judge observed, "The intent of the respondent to play fraud on the court and to hoodwink the law of land stands proven beyond doubt. He claims that he was forcibly taken to the tehsil office to get the sale deed executed by the vendee for only a paltry consideration of Rs 26.4 lakh. However, the copy of 'Agreement to sell' entered between the two shows that the land was sold for Rs 1.3 crore per acre," thus rejecting the respondent's plea.