J A L A N D H A R    E D I T I O N

Reprieve for 125 jail inmates
Gurdaspur, August 25
Lok adalats have become safety valves of the law courts to ease their burden of pending cases and as well as to provide speedy justice to litigants. This was stated by district Sessions Judge KK Garg while presiding over a lok adalat held on the Central Jail premises.

DGP visits Punjab Police Academy
Phillaur, August 25
Sumedh Saini, Director General of Police, Punjab, visited Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur, to discuss professional police training-related priorities with the officers of the academy and commandants of all five other police recruits training centres of the state police.

3 killed in accidents
Jalandhar August 25
A 19-year-old girl was killed in a road accident after she was hit by a speeding truck near Sodal Nagar. The deceased, identified as Ashima of New Kailash Nagar, was a student of BA first year at KMV.

Rail traffic suspended for 6 hrs
Phagwara, August 25
The rail traffic on the Phagwara-Jejon section remained suspended for more than six hours owing to the derailment of a bogey of a “special ballast train” between Jejon and Nawanshahar last night.

Police accused of inaction
Jalandhar, August 25
Parents of APJ schoolteacher Akansha, who allegedly committed suicide last week, today held a rally outside the house of her in-laws at Seth Hukam Chand Colony. Hundreds of schoolchildren, accompanied by teachers, staff members and residents, took part in the rally.

Reprieve for 125 jail inmates
Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, August 25
Lok adalats have become safety valves of the law courts to ease their burden of pending cases and as well as to provide speedy justice to litigants. This was stated by district Sessions Judge KK Garg while presiding over a lok adalat held on the Central Jail premises. As many as 110 cases were solved on the spot and 125 inmates were given a reprieve at the lok adalat.

Speaking on the sidelines of the function, Garg said: “The ancient concept of settlement of dispute through mediation, negotiation or through arbitral process is conceptualised and institutionalised in the philosophy of lok adalats. The concept of lok adalats has become immensely successful these days. The salient features of this form of dispute resolution are participation, accommodation, fairness, expectation transparency, efficiency and lack of animosity”.

Senior criminal lawyer Karanjit Singh said: “The concept of lok adalats was pushed back into oblivion in the past few decades. Now, this concept has once again been rejuvenated. It has become popular and familiar among litigants. This is a system which has deep roots in the Indian legal history and has close proximity to the culture and perception of justice in Indian ethos”.

Legal experts were of the view that the evolution of this movement was a part of the strategy to relieve heavy burden on the courts with pending cases and to give relief to the litigants who were in a queue to get justice.

“Lok adalats have been successful in the settlement of motor accident claim cases, matrimonial/family disputes, labour disputes and disputes relating to public services such as telephone, electricity and bank recovery cases,” said Karanjit Singh.

Jail Superintendent Shammi Kumar claimed that apart from lessening the burden on courts, today’s venture will also save the tax payer Rs 12,500 per day as Rs 100 was spent everyday on the upkeep of one detainee.

“Since 125 detainees have been given a reprieve, we will be saving Rs 12,500 everyday,” he added.

AC Nanda, president of the Gurdaspur District Bar Association, said the detainees released today belonged to the lower strata of society who were unable to defend themselves by engaging a counsel.

DGP visits Punjab Police Academy
Our Correspondent

Phillaur, August 25
Sumedh Saini, Director General of Police, Punjab, visited Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur, to discuss professional police training-related priorities with the officers of the academy and commandants of all five other police recruits training centres of the state police, who participated in an especially convened high-level meeting of all the heads of police training institutions of the state.

After an elaborate interaction with the heads of the police training institutions during which all the training-related issues were discussed threadbare, Saini expressed the view that sound professional training was the backbone of operational efficacy and no effort would be spared to fine-tune and strengthen the professional police training process to the utmost extent.

Elaborating his vision for professional training, he said the training process must aim at toughening up of mental and physical faculties of the individual police officer to the maximum possible extent so as to fully enable him to adequately measure up to the onerous professional challenges with full measure of confidence and expertise.

Reflecting on the vital role of discipline in day-to-day police functioning, Saini said the core attributes of the concept of discipline were fairness, objectivity and scrupulous adherence to ethical code of conduct. He urged all the trainers to inculcate this spirit of discipline among all the trainee police officers so that they might be able render quality service to the people in the real sense of the term.

Expressing his satisfaction over the overall training standards of the Punjab Police, Saini said progressive amalgamation and integration of the human resources training centres with the field units were essential to fine-tune the training inputs and derive reciprocal advantage by putting together theoretical and pragmatic aspects of professional police working.

3 killed in accidents
Our Correspondents

Jalandhar August 25
A 19-year-old girl was killed in a road accident after she was hit by a speeding truck near Sodal Nagar. The deceased, identified as Ashima of New Kailash Nagar, was a student of BA first year at KMV.

Inspector Bimal Kant Sharma, said the deceased was returning home from her tuition classes at Shiv Nagar. The accident happened near Sodal Nagar.

The truck driver, identified as Satnam Singh of Taran Taran, escaped. A case under Section 304 A of the IPC has been registered against the driver.

Hoshiarpur: Robin (19), son of Amarjit, and Satwinder Kumar (19), son of Atma Ram, both of the local Tulsi Nagar, were killed on the spot when an unidentified speeding vehicle hit their motorcycle (PB-07AB-9356) on the Hoshiarpur-Jalandhar road last night. After the accident, the vehicle driver, along with his vehicle, fled from the scene. A case has been registered.

Rail traffic suspended for 6 hrs
Our Correspondent

Phagwara, August 25
The rail traffic on the Phagwara-Jejon section remained suspended for more than six hours owing to the derailment of a bogey of a “special ballast train” between Jejon and Nawanshahar last night.

Railway sources, while confirming the derailment, told this correspondent here today that the 55-bogey special ballast train was sent to the section for strengthening work, but suddenly four wheels of a bogey derailed and a portion of 200m of the rail track was also damaged due to the derailment.

Phagwara station superintendent Ashok Kumar rushed to the spot to supervise the restoration operation. Later, a crane and a JCB were brought from Ludhiana to lift stones from rail tracks to normalise the traffic, which could be restored late in the night. Two diesel multiple-unit trains were cancelled on the section due to the derailment.

Police accused of inaction

Jalandhar, August 25
Parents of APJ schoolteacher Akansha, who allegedly committed suicide last week, today held a rally outside the house of her in-laws at Seth Hukam Chand Colony. Hundreds of schoolchildren, accompanied by teachers, staff members and residents, took part in the rally.

The protesters carried posters of Akansha’s father-in-law Sudhir Malhotra, mother-in-law Renu Malhotra and sister-in-law Kanicka Malhotra and demanded their arrest. Deceased’s husband Poojan Malhotra has already been arrested by the Pathankot police. Before the march, Akansha’s parents held a press conference, in which they accused the Pathankot police of inaction. Deceased’s sister Veenu alleged that her sister did not commit suicide, but was murdered. — OC