Rohtak, May 3
Unscheduled power cuts are taking toll on the consumers, especially in the essential services sector. An unscheduled power cut for more than two and a half hours left patients in the lurch at the Civil Hospital today. The power outage not only posed a serious risk to the lives of patients who were undergoing surgery, but also delayed some operations. The hospital, which receives around 1,000 patients in its OPD daily, has no power backup facility.

“Doctors told me to come again on some other day as surgery of my hand could not take place due to power cut today and there was no alternative arrangement of power supply in the hospital,’’ said Seema, a local resident, who has been visiting the hospital for the treatment of an orthopaedic disorder.

“We were told to come today for eye surgery this morning but lack of power supply has left us in the lurch. We have not taken food for the past several hours due to the operation and we have been waiting for the resumption of power supply for the past two hours’’ claimed Darshana and Shanti, both patients of cataract.

Expressing resentment, Geeta, who came for a family planning operation, said it was quite harassing and surprising that a place like the Civil Hospital did not have a power backup and the patients were made to suffer.

“It is not for the first time that power cuts have posed problems for doctors and patients. But now, it has almost become a routine and the patients are at the receiving end,” claimed an employee on the condition of anonymity.

He revealed that surgeries were performed under torch or candle light several times when there was a power cut. “The hospital has received a DG generator set but it is not operational as of now as some formalities are yet to be completed,” claimed CMO Dr VK Govilla.

He said the power connection of the hospital was upgraded to 400 KV a couple of years ago but admitted that due to some problems the power backup system was yet to be made operational. 

Chandigarh, May 3
Ansal Properties and Infrastructure Limited is in the dock for developing Aravali Retreat on approximately 1200 acres after allegedly razing to the ground a “mountain” in Raisina village of Gurgaon district.

Justice Mehinder Singh Sullar of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today upheld the August 2007 orders of the Special Environment Court, summoning Ansal Properties and other accused for facing trial on the complaint of the Haryana Pollution Control Board.

The argument that the subsequent vendees or transferees could not be prosecuted, as they were bona fide purchasers also failed to find favour with the high court.

It was alleged that the accused developers carved out farmhouses and ruined the fragile ecology after totally destroying “gairmumkin pahad” in violation of the “Aravali notification” restricting development activity in the area. The notification was issued by the Central Government on May 7, 1992.

Justice Sullar asserted: “There are direct allegations in the impugned complaint that the accused developers changed the nature of the mountain, after developing the area allotted to various other persons and the entire exercise was done after the issuance of the notification.

“A committee was constituted…. The committee came to the conclusion that the developers changed the nature of the disputed land and developed the infrastructure for a cluster of 630 farmhouses, out of which 108 farmhouses were constructed and allotted in violation of the provisions of Aravali notification….

“Even the electricity connections were obtained by the allottees after the issuance of notification. Therefore, all the essential ingredients of the indicated offences are complete.”

Justice Sullar added: “The solitary fact that the developers informed the Director, Town and Country Planning and other irrelevant authorities under the different Acts, before the issuance of the notification, is not at all a cogent ground to quash the impugned complaints and summoning orders, because they have not obtained any requisite prior approval/ sanction from the competent authority and violated the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, for which, they have been prosecuted”.

Chandigarh, May 3
The Haryana Government has posted/transferred 17 IPS and two HPS officers with immediate effect.

The police chiefs in three districts of Panchkula, Karnal and Ambala have also been shifted in the reshuffle.

Satyendera Kumar, on promotion as Director-General of Police (DGP), has been posted as Commandant-General, Home Guards, Sharad Kumar, on promotion as DGP, has been posted as DGP (Crime), RK Vachher, on promotion as DGP, has been posted as DGP, Human Rights and Litigation.

Mohinder Lal has been posted as ADGP (Modernisation), MS Mann has been posted as ADGP (Law and Order), BS Sandhu has been posted as MD, Haryana Police Housing Corporation, KP Singh, on promotion, has been posted as ADGP (Prison), AK Dhul, on promotion has been posted as ADGP (Administration), K Selvaraj, on promotion as been posted as ADGP (Crime), Sheel Madhur, on promotion has been posted as Director, Haryana Police Academy, Madhuban, Dr RP Singh, on promotion as ADGP has been posted as ADGP (Operations).

KK Sharma has been transferred as Commissioner of Police, Ambala and Panchkula, Navdeep Singh Virk goes as Joint Commissioner of Police, Faridabad, Anil Rao is the Joint Commissioner of Police, Gurgaon.

Rakesh Arya has been transferred as SP, Kurukshetra, Parul Kush Jain will be the new Deputy Commissioner of Police, Panchkula, Shashank Anand, has been transferred as SP, Karnal.

Kuldeep Singh has been transferred as DCP, Ambala, and Vikas Dhankhar has been transferred as DCP, Crime, Gurgaon. 

New Delhi, May 3
The Supreme Court has directed the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) to hold afresh a written test and interview for the unsuccessful candidates who had taken the examination for the recruitment of Hindi Lecturers held in June 2008.

In a judgment delivered on a petition filed by an unsuccessful candidate, Poonam Rani, a Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhaya asked the HSSC to complete the exercise within four months.

The SC passed the order as the Commission had destroyed the answersheets of the written examination within a few days of declaring the results in violation of a policy decision taken through a resolution on October 1, 1994 under which the sheets were to be preserved for three months.

Poonam, a Scheduled Caste (SC) candidate, had sought the details of the marks secured by the SC female candidates who had qualified in the written examination. But the commission refused to disclose the information. Ultimately, on a directive from the Punjab and Haryana HC, the commission passed an order on December 5, 2008 informing her that she had secured 117 marks out of 225 as against 119 marks secured by the last selected candidate of the SC female category.

She challenged this order in the HC seeking her appointment as a lecturer (Hindi) against one of the posts reserved for SC (female). A single Judge Bench of the HC rejected her plea, observing that the answersheets had already been destroyed. This was later confirmed by the Division Bench (DB), prompting her to approach the SC.

Describing the destruction of the answersheets as “wholly arbitrary and unjustified,” the SC said “the sole object of this exercise appears to be to ensure that in the event of challenge to the result of the selection, the court may not be able to scrutinize the record for the purpose of finding out whether the selection was fair and objective or the candidates had been subjected to invidious discrimination.”

The SC observed that the Single Judge and the DB of the HC did not pay serious attention to the blatant violation of the resolutions passed by the commission on the issue of destruction of the record of the selection and erroneously assumed that in the absence of allegations of mala fides against the commission the court was not required to go into the legality of their action to destroy the answersheets.

In its verdict, delivered earlier this week, the SC said at this stage it would not be fair to confine the fresh selection to Poonam alone as the other unsuccessful candidates who could not approach the HC or this court on account of ignorance or financial constraints “cannot be deprived of their legitimate right to be again considered along with the appellant.”

Observing that any direction to the commission to consider the case of Poonam alone would result in the violation of the doctrine of equality, the SC said the candidates selected in the fresh exercise “shall become entitled to be appointed against the vacancies which may be available on the date of finalization of the selection.”

Rohtak, May 3
Hitting at the cause of the problem, the local police has booked and arrested four officials of the district jail here in connection with the recovery of around 24 mobile phones from the jail complex in the past few weeks.

One youth has also been arrested for supplying a sim card to one of the jail inmates recently. The district jail, which was shifted to its new premises last month near Sunarian village, has around 1100 inmates at present.

“The accused jail officials include one head warden and three wardens identified as Rajpal, Ashok Sharma, Virender Saini and Yogesh,” said a spokesperson of the district police. The accused have been remanded to one-day police custody. It may be recalled that 19 mobile phones and 14 sims were recovered from the jail barracks during a special operation on Monday, while two more mobiles were found the next day.

While 16 inmates had been arrested on production warrant earlier, two more accused identified as Ram Kumar and Amit were arrested today. They were remanded to one day police custody by the local court today.

“The Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up to probe the matter has started its work and a detailed report was likely to be submitted soon,” said district police chief Vivek Sharma. Meanwhile, CCTV cameras installed in the district court complex were inaugurated by District and Sessions Judge Inderjit Mehta and the SSP here this morning.