Chandigarh, January 2
Haryana Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Sharma today reserved the order on the disqualification petitions of five MLAs of the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) who joined the Congress to help Bhupinder Singh Hooda form the government for the second time in 2009. Sharma is expected to pronounce his judgement in the case before January 13, the deadline set by the Supreme Court (SC).

With the Speaker listening to the final arguments of the counsel for the affected parties today, the stage is set for the pronouncement of the order on the fate of five MLAs two years after the beginning of the legal and legislative battle in December 2009.

HJC supremo Kuldeep Bishnoi had petitioned the Speaker seeking disqualification of the five MLAs under the anti-defection law in December 2009. The five “defector” MLAs of the HJC -- Rao Narender Singh and Satpal Sangwan (both Cabinet ministers), Vinod Bhayana (Chief Parliamentary Secretary), Zile Ram Sharma and Dharam Singh Chokker -- had “merged” their party with the Congress on November 9 and 10, 2009, to help Hooda cobble together a majority in the 90-member Haryana Assembly.

Winning 40 seats, the Congress had fallen short of a majority after the October 2009 assembly poll and had formed the government with the support of the seven Independents and five defector MLAs.

Bishnoi, who remained the sole member of the HJC in the Vidhan Sabha after the “defection” of the five MLAs to the Congress, had petitioned the then Speaker, Harmohinder Singh Chatha, challenging the “merger”.

Bishnoi then moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, challenging the Speaker’s approval to the merger. On this, a Single Bench of the court directed the Speaker in December 2010, to dispose of the issue within four months.

In 2011, Chatha joined the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government as minister and Sharma, a first-time MLA, was named Speaker.

The Speaker challenged the single bench order before a Division Bench. On December 20, 2011, an order upholding this order was passed by the high court in which the five MLAs were declared as “unattached” members and restrained them from discharging their duties as MLAs, pending the final decision by the Speaker.

Aggrieved by the HC order, the five MLAs, Bishnoi and the Speaker moved the SC, challenging the HC verdict. In its verdict, the SC set aside that part of the HC verdict which had restrained the MLAs from discharging their functions, but upheld the directive to the Speaker to dispose of the disqualification pleas within a time frame.

Recently,Sharma asserted that he would soon file a review petition before the Supreme Court seeking "clarification" regarding its direction to him on the disqualification petitions of five HJC MLAs.

the case timeline Five HJC MLAs join the Congress on November 9 & 10, 2009. HJC chief Kuldeep Bishnoi demands MLAs’ disqualification in December 2009. Bishnoi challenges Speaker’s approval of merger in HC in December 2010. HC declares the five MLAs as “unattached” on December 20, 2011. SC provides relief to the MLAs from “unattached” status on September 28, 2012. Speaker reserves the order on disqualification petition on January 2, 2013.

Chandigarh, January 2
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda will rub shoulders with the ordinary commuters on the inaugural run of the Rewari-Jhajjar-Rohtak rail line on January 8. It is for the first time since Independence that the Jat heartland has been connected by train.

Union Minister of State for Railways KJ Surya Prakasha Reddy and the CM’s MP son Depinder Hooda will also be on the train that will pass through eight Vidhan Sabha segments where the respective legislators would board the train and travel till Rohtak.

Prof Varinder Singh, political adviser, told The Tribune that the demand for a rail track on this segment had been pending since 1947. “Many Congress leaders will travel on the train and get an experience of the countryside,” he said.

The ordinary passenger train connects Rewari with Asthal Bohar in Rohtak. At the first station, Gokalgarh, Haryana Power Minister Ajay Singh Yadav will come on board along with his supporters. Legislator Yadvinder Singh will board at Palhawas station and at Machhrauli, local MLA Naresh Sharma will join them.

Haryana Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal will join the bandwagon at Jhajjar, her home constituency, and, finally, former Haryana Speaker Raghbir Singh Quadian will join at Dighal station.

At the final destination of Rohtak, Shadi Lal Batra, Rajya Sabha MP, and Bharat Bhushan Batra, local MLA, would welcome the train. The passengers would be treated to packed lunch and onboard entertainment by Haryanvi folk singers.

The Rewari-Rohtak train would take two hours to cover the distance of 81 km.

The rail project has been completed at a cost of Rs 625 crore, half of which has been contributed by Haryana. It has 124 rail bridges on various canals, drains and water courses, 36 level crossings, 32 limited height subways and four road over bridges (ROBs).

Initially, two trains would run on this track and later more trains would connect the Jat heartland with the rest of the country. 

Chandigarh, January 2
Whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka has termed Haryana's decision to set up a panel to probe his orders to cancel the mutation of a land deal between Robert Vadra and DLF as a "cover-up to the gargantuan land scams" and sought relevant file notings from the state government.

Four days after the high-level panel headed by Additional Chief Secretary Krishan Mohan submitted its inquiry report into the cancellation of mutation of 3.5 acres of land in Gurgaon, Khemka stood his ground on his findings in the controversial deal.

In a communication to Chief Secretary PK Chaudhery on Monday, Khemka, who as Director-General of Consolidation of Holdings, had cancelled the mutation of a land deal between Robert Vadra and real estate giant DLF, wrote that his orders under Section 42 of the East-Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948, were "quasi- judicial and final."

Currently MD of the Haryana Seeds Development Corporation, Khemka has also sought a copy of the government order constituting the inquiry committee, its terms of reference etc .

Khemka also termed the committee as a "sham to justify possible action against me as a cover to the gargantuan land scams"."All this kind of humiliation and mental torture is to break me down psychologically," he claimed, adding that "vested interests" in the government had "pre-judged" the matter.

He said he was surprised that the affected individual or the corporate house was "not ostensibly aggrieved." In his letter Khemka said: "The remedy for the affected party is to challenge the order by way of filing a writ petition in the high court".

Khemka has cited a case in which the Punjab and Haryana High Court had on September 6 last year directed the Hooda government to compile all orders of the DG(Consolidation), where precious panchayat land was transferred to influential realtor companies.

"One of my orders pertaining to Chirsi village (Faridabad district) is also under challenge," he wrote.

The probe panel had submitted its report to the Chief Secretary on December 28.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Vadra had sold 3.53 acres of land at Shikohpur village in Gurgaon district to DLF.

As DG(Consolidation), Khemka had on October 15 last year set aside the mutation on the grounds that the assistant consolidation officer who had sanctioned it was not authorised to do so.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda claimed on December 31 that he was yet to receive the report.

Chandigarh, January 2
The Haryana Government has issued guidelines for the posting of IAS and HCS officers, admissibility of senior scale, selection grade and supertime scale of HCS (Executive Branch).

A spokesman of Personnel Department said the government has ordered that on their entry in the service, the IAS officers of the Haryana cadre, would be appointed as Joint Secretary or on posts equivalent to Joint Secretary. Also, the IAS officers in the senior scale, junior administrative grade and the supertime scale, would be appointed as Additional Secretary , Special Secretary and Secretary, respectively or on equivalent posts.

He said on appointment as Additional Secretary , Special Secretary and Secretary , the posts of Joint Secretary , Additional Secretary and Special Secretary held by such an officer shall stand upgraded acccordingly.

The state government has also ordered that on their entry in the service, the HCS (Executive Branch) officers would be appointed as deputy secretary. On the completion of 10 years,15 years and 18 years of satisfactory service, the HCS officers would be appointed as Joint Secretary, Additional Secretary and Special Secretary, respectively.

The Government also ordered that the senior scale, selection grade and super time scale of the HCS shall be admissible to the members of service after the completion of five years, 10 years and 15 years of regular satisfactory service, respectively.

Meanwhile, the post of Director (Employment), Director(Archives) and Director(Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes) will be included in the HCS cadre.

Ambala, January 2
Durana village in this district has become the first village in the state where the direct benefit transfer scheme has been introduced.

The scheme came into operation after KS Gill, Additional Director (Admn.), Social Justice and Empowerment Department, along with a team of ICICI bank officials passed on the benefits of various pension schemes to more than 100 beneficiaries of the village.

He said that there were around 219 beneficiaries of various pension schemes in the village out of whom 193 having the Aadhaar cards were provided with pension through the system. He said that the rest would be provided the benefits as soon as they got their Aadhaar cards.

Around 10 more villages of the block would be brought under the ambit of the scheme within a few months. 

Ambala, January 2
The police today filed a chargesheet against Sanjay Kumar, who allegedly under the garb of a saint abducted a minor girl and repeatedly raped her for more than 10 days.

The 17-year-old girl had gone missing from her house on December 17 and was later found near the Kurukshetra railway station on December 27. The girl's father had lodged a complaint with the police alleging that Sanjay Kumar, who originally hailed from Hardoi district in Uttar Pradesh and was now staying at Ugala village in the district and pretended to be a saint, had abducted his daughter.

The police finally found them at Kurukshetra railway station on December 27.

The girl, a student of class XI at a government school of her native village, was made to undergo medical examination, following which it was established that the accused had repeatedly raped her.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rural) Nazneen Bhasin said the police today filed a chargesheet in the court against the accused. 

Rewari, January 2
The police has arrested Deepak (23) of Delhi in a case of rape, attempt to murder and criminal intimidation.

Bharti Arora, SSP, said here today Deepak, who happens to be a relative of the girl (18), who is a student of a local college, came to Rewari by car on November 3, 2012, deceitfully summoned the girl to Naiwali Chowk here and raped her in the car at a deserted spot.

When the victim tried to flee, Deepak opened fire, injuring her in the chest. He threatened her against informing the police.

The family met the district police chief here last evening. — OC

Chandigarh, January 2
Haryana Governor Jagannath Pahadia said today that Haryana was heading for a new revolution in sports and it was the first state in the country where medal winners of Olympics and other international events were awarded the highest cash prizes and given government jobs.

Pahadia was speaking after conferring Bhim Awards for 2010-11 upon six outstanding sportspersons at a function here today.

Those who received the Bhim Award included Jitender Kumar(boxing), Nirmala Devi(wrestling), Om Parkash (athletics- shot put), Dhruv Gautam and Yashdeep Kaur for (roller skating--hockey) and Rajesh Kumar (athletics). Each sportsperson was honoured with Rs 2 lakh in cash, an idol of Bhim, a letter of appreciation, a blazer and a tie or scarf.

Congratulating the sportspersons on winning the highest sports award of Haryana, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the government had given equal status to paralympic players by honouring them.

Haryana Speaker Kuldeep Sharma, Sports Minister Sukhbir Kataria, Chief Parliamentary Secretaries Prahlad Singh Gillankhera and Sultan Singh Jadaula, among others, were present.

Faridabad, January 2
Although Haryana Minister for Labour and Employment Shivcharan Sharma yesterday rendered an unqualified apology for his controversial comment against deceased Geetikia Sharma, who was an employee of former minister from the state, Gopal Kanda, the INLD tried to make a political windfall from the controversy here today.

INLD activists hit the streets against the minister, burning his effigy for having made the comment. They also took out a procession in the NIT constituency which is represented by him.

The INLD demanded his resignation from the Haryana Council of Ministers.

The agitation was led by the Faridabad president of the INLD, Nagender Bhadana, who had lost to Sharma in the last assembly election.

Sharma rendered an apology again for having made the comment against Geetika. He said he did not intend to hurt anyone’s sentiment.

The minister had described Geetkia as a "servant" of Gopal Kanda during his speech at a function in Sirsa, the latter's home district, on December 29. He had reportedly gone on to add that her death was not a big issue. He had also eulogised Kanda.

Fatehabad: The Mahila Janhit Congress today held a demonstration, burnt effigies of Haryana minister Shiv Charan Sharma and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Prahlad Singh Gillankhera and demanded their removal from the Cabinet for their alleged utterances during Gopal Kanda’s birthday bash at Sirsa.

Kusum Sharma, state president of the Mahila Janhit Congress, who led the demonstration, alleged that these leaders' statements that Geetika Sharma was a “bad servant” employed by Kanda and that he would again be a minister exhibited their mindset towards women.

She alleged that the utterances of these ministers also reflected the mindset of the Haryana government, which, she maintained, was not serious about the increasing incidents of rapes in the state.

The protesters submitted a memorandum, addressed to the Governor, to Additional Deputy Commissioner Rajiv Rattan seeking the dismissal of Sharma and Gillankhera and the registration of criminal cases against them.

Sirsa: The BJP on Wednesday demanded the dismissal of Shiv Charan Sharma and Gillankhera from the Cabinet for their statements

Renu Sharma, state president of the Mahila Morcha of the BJP, said that when the entire country was mourning the tragic death of the Delhi gang rape victim, Sharma and Gillankhera had rubbed salt on the wounds of women by their “deplorable” conduct.

Sirsa, January 2
Unruly scenes were witnessed in Chaudhary Devi Lal University today with teachers coming to blows and the non-teaching staff of the university starting a dharna against a teacher, who, they alleged, manhandled them.

In a series of developments that started after the farewell party of Chaudhary Devi Lal University Vice-Chancellor KC Bhardwaj, some teachers had heated arguments with Registrar Manoj Siwach in his office last evening, a teacher allegedly manhandled some non-teaching staff members while another don roughed up an associate professor today.

The Registrar is said to have senta fax message to the Chancellor’s office while a non-teaching staff member as well as the associate professor have approached the police.

One group of teachers had an altercation with the Registrar over the clearance of a file.

The teachers, sources said, wanted to get a file cleared by the outgoing Vice-Chancellor, but Siwach expressed his unwillingness to clear it. Another group of teachers went to the camp office of the Vice-Chancellor and when his staff told them that Bhardwaj had left the town, one of them is alleged to have roughed up certain officials.

The enraged non-teaching staff went on strike and started a dharna outside the Registrar's office.

The Registrar's efforts to end the impasse by persuading the teacher responsible for the misconduct to apologise failed as the protesters have sought departmental and police action against him.

Gurgaon, January 2
In no mood to ignore any incident of eve-teasing, the Gurgaon police today arrested Narendra Kumar, a resident of Behrampur village, and Nafe Singh and Suraj, residents of Ullawas village, all in their early 20s, from Sector 15 and booked them for obscene acts.

The three are students of a district education centre. They allegedly passed lewed comments to girls passing by and chased them on their way to Post-Graduate Government Women's College on MG Road in Sector 14.

They whistled and passed lewed comments till the girls reached hostel.

The girls informed police.

"The girls called police and gave the boys' vehicle number. They were nabbed from Sector 15. We have registered a case against the trio. We urge all girls to speak up and help us nab eve-teasers ," said Civil Lines police station chief Naresh Kumar.

Ambala, January 2
In an attempt to bring down the number of defaulters, which has cross the 6 lakh mark, the UHBVN has come up with a scheme to enable the rural domestic and agricultural customers to settle their pending electricity bills without paying any surcharge.

Power utilities Chairman and Managing Director Devender Singh said the UHBVN hadnotified the scheme under which the surcharge levied on non-payment of outstanding power bills as on June 17, 2005, had been waived.

He said the consumers would have to deposit outstanding amounts in instalments over 20 months. On depositing outstanding amount, the surcharge on delayed payment would be waived, said the MD.

The utility had earlier also introduced a similar scheme but some consumers after paying the outstanding bills for a few months had opted out.

Under the new scheme, such consumers would also be able to get the surcharge waived by paying a nominal fee of Rs 500 for rural domestic consumers, Rs 750 for AP consumers having a connected load up to 15 BHP and Rs1,000 for AP consumers having a connected load above 15 BHP.

Devinder Singh said the SDOs concerned had been asked to reach out to the consumer to go for the new scheme, which would remain in force till March 31.

Jind, January 2
Anil Kumar, an 18-year-old student of Julani village in the district, had no inkling about the death awaiting him in the form of alleged negligence on the part of the power supply department, when he went to sleep in his house on Monday night.

He became a victim of electrocution as a high voltage power line snapped and fell on the line supplying power to the village.

The kin of the victim and residents of the village have demanded action against the staff of the department responsible for the accident and compensation to the kin of the deceased.

"We were asleep when we heard a loud noise like an explosion. There were screams all around as the high voltage power supply led to bursting of household equipment and bulbs inside the house," said Dhan Singh, a local resident. He said the high voltage line passing over the Basti snapped and fell on the main supply line to the village. The supply went out of control and everything connected to the power network started bursting due to the extremely high voltage. Hundreds of household equipment in over 250 houses got damaged. Anil succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital.

The angry villagers blocked the highway near Patiala Chowk for about two hours and lifted the blockade only after they were assured of early action on their demands which include a government job to the victim's kin.

Gurgaon, January 2
The Gurgaon police has nabbed a notorious criminal, Sumit Rana, who is a gunman of the dreaded Anil Chippi gang.

He had a reward of Rs 1.50 lakh on him. He was trying to settle in Singapore and has been caught after a long wait of six years. It recovered a countrymade pistol, four cartridges, a stolen Santro car, a forged passport and a driving licence from him.

"The accused is a 28-year-old resident of Kundal village in Sonepat district who has been evading us for six years. He was the sharpshooter of the Anil Chippi gang. The Jhajjar and Rohtak police have announced cash rewards for those who helped in his arrest," said Rajesh Phogat, ACP (Crime).