Chandigarh, July 31
With the Supreme Court curtailing the jurisdiction of consumer courts to entertain complaints against the Power Department, these courts will no longer hear complaints regarding unauthorised use of electricity and power theft.

The Haryana Power Department has issued directions to its field staff to “facilitate dismissal of complaints filed on these grounds in consumer forums for lack of jurisdiction”. Now these disputes would be settled by the special courts constituted under the Electricity Act, 2003.

As per the SC judgement, the aggrieved persons could now move consumer courts only against the Power Department in the case of disputes relating to unfair trade practices, deficiency in service, hazardous service and excess payment.

The SC ruled that the Electricity Act, 2003, and the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, ran parallel for giving relief to any person who fell within the meaning of “consumer” under the Act. However, the consumer forums do not have jurisdiction to entertain cases pertaining to Section 126 (final assessment for unauthorised use of electricity) and Section 135 to 140 (theft of energy) of the Electricity Act, 2003.

It was also held that the final decision by an assessing officer on "unauthorised use of electricity” was a “quasi-judicial” decision and did not fall within the meaning of “consumer dispute” under Section 2(1) (e) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

The National Consumers Dispute Redressal Commission had ruled in 2008 that the consumer forums had jurisdiction over cases of power theft and unauthorised use of electricity.

the sc judgement The SC clips consumer courts’ wings on complaints against Power Department Power theft, assessment orders on unauthorised power use outside consumers forums’ purview Special courts under the Electricity Act to decide these cases

Yamunanagar, July 31
Thousands of kanwariyas today laid siege to the National Highway-73 near Kalanour after animal flesh was found scattered on the stretch.

Tempers ran high amid sloganeering against the administration as kanwariyas, who bring holy water of the Ganga, alleged that the act was done to create hindrance to the pilgrimage. The traffic on the national highway, which connects Chandigarh with Roorkee, was suspended for hours due to the protest.

The matter was reported to the police and forces were rushed to the spot. The blockade could only be lifted after senior police officers assured the protesters of strict action against the guilty.

District police chief Y Puran Kumar ordered an investigation into the matter. He said a vehicle carrying meat had passed through the road and as the back door of the vehicle was open, the meat had got scattered on the road. He said following protests the police had sent the in-charge of the Kalanour post to the Police Lines. 

Chandigarh, July 31
The Haryana Police Complaint Authority has failed to achieve its objective due to inadvertent drafting of Section 65 of the Haryana Police Act, 2007. Not many complaints are being filed before the authority because of its limited jurisdiction. The Act was enacted following the Supreme Court judgement in the Parkash Singh versus Union of India case.

Section 65 of the Act empowers the authority to probe allegations of “serious misconduct against police personnel. The section also describes “serious misconduct” as any act or omission of a police officer that leads to or amounts to (a) death in police custody; (b) rape or attempt to commit rape; (c) grievous hurt in police custody.

However, a proviso to the section says that the “authority shall inquire into a complaint of such arrest or detention only if it is satisfied…” The fact that proviso to Section 65 talks of “arrest or detention”, the section itself does not mention these terms.

To give more teeth to the authority, its Chairman, HS Rana, has written to the government to amend Section 65 to include “arrest and detention without due process of law and any incident involving serious abuse of authority in the definition of “serious misconduct”.

Rana feels that the omission might be the result of a typographical mistake or just inadvertence on the part of the framers because without a substantive clause, the proviso is meaningless.

Almost all states and UTs have made the arrest of a person without due process of law a serious misconduct in their Acts. Rana has also pointed out to the government that though the 2007 Act provides for the constitution of district and state-level police complaint authorities, it is silent on the demarcation of their jurisdiction.

He has found a pattern in the misuse of its authority by the police. The pattern include non-registration of an FIR unless the officials are pressured by someone; to call a person in the garb of investigation and make him sit in the police station for hours/days for extraneous considerations; no action or delayed action for extraneous considerations; not apply right provisions of law to help one party for extraneous considerations; and to register cross-cases so that the opposite party is pressured for a compromise.

A writ petition has also been admitted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the “limited jurisdiction” of the police complaint authority. 

Gurgaon, July 31
The family and sympathisers of Gurgaon Chief Judicial Magistrate Ravneet Garg's wife Geetanjali have sought permission from the district authorities to hold a candlelight march here on August 4.

Geetanjali's brother Pradeep Agarwal said they had sent an e-mail to Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner Shekhar Vidyarthi, urging him to allow them to hold a peaceful demonstration to register their protest.

"We are highly disappointed at the lackadaisical approach of police officials handling the case. The investigations have failed to make any headway even two weeks after the murder. Nor have Ravneet or his family members been arrested," he said.

Pradeep lamented police inaction despite specific instructions given to the top police authorities to expedite the probe and nail those responsible for Geetanjali's death.

He said the police officials were neither showing any progress in the case nor was the case being handed over to the CBI despite directions of the state authorities.

Gurgaon Police Commissioner Alok Mittal parried all queries regarding the progress made by the police in the case. 

Chandigarh, July 31
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has rapped the Haryana Police for carrying out “shoddy” investigation in an abduction case.

The censure came during the hearing of an appeal by one Parveen Kumar, who had challenged Gurgaon Additional Sessions Judge’s orders of January 2009, convicting him of murder and kidnapping of a boy and destroying evidence before sentencing him to life imprisonment.

Victim Rahul’s father Digpal Singh had earlier told the police that his son (12) had left for school on September 24, 2007, but never returned. Later, he received a ransom call from an unidentified caller. The accused was later arrested from his house.

During interrogation, the accused disclosed that he had abducted Rahul and took him to Rewari. He later killed Rahul and threw his body near the canal. He also revealed that he had called his maternal uncle-cum-Rahul’s father on his mobile phone at Dharuhera and another call for Rs 5-lakh ransom was also made to Digpal Singh. Following this, a police party along with the accused recovered Rahul’s body, his cycle and schoolbag.

Taking up the appeal, the Bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Fateh Deep Singh said: “We find that it is a case of shoddy investigation on part of the police. The prosecution has failed to link ransom calls as that made by the appellant. Firstly, there is no evidence that first call on September 24, 2007, was made by the appellant from a STD booth in the area of Dharuhera….

“Since the link in respect of making of ransom call is missing, we are unable to uphold the conviction of the appellant for an offence punishable under Section 365 IPC (kidnapping). However, the appellant stands convicted for the offences punishable under Sections 302 and 201 of the IPC”.

The Bench, however, added: “The recording of disclosure statements and recoveries in pursuance of such statements are reliable and trustworthy. Such evidence completes the chain of events and is sufficient to maintain the conviction of the appellant for an offence punishable under Sections 302 and 201 (murder and destroying evidence) of the IPC…”

Sirsa, July 31
Even as 82 more schoolchildren were taken ill in various parts of Sirsa today, the authorities have decided to launch an awareness campaign in view of the stiff opposition by parents towards the Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFS) programme in the district.

On Monday, children in 118 government schools of the district had refused to take iron and folic acid (IFA) pills. In several villages of Ellenabad block, parents had even warned teachers against administering these pills to their children.

In many villages, teachers are reluctant to administer IFA pills to the children for the fear of inviting wrath of their parents. In view of the development, Ellenabad SDM Prabhjot Singh addressed a meeting of school heads and health officials in his office today. Civil Surgeon Dr Surender Nain claimed that the meeting was fruitful.

Meanwhile, Sirsa Deputy Commissioner Dr J Ganesan has called a seminar for doctors, health workers, principals, headmasters and other officials associated with the WIFS programme in the Panchayat Bhawan tomorrow.

He said after clearing doubts of the teachers and field staff of the health department, an intensive drive would be launched to ensure that no resistance was faced anywhere when the third dose of IFA pills was administered in government schools on the coming Monday.

Dr Ganesan appealed to people to cooperate in the drive against iron deficiency.

Karnal, July 31
Sardar Vir Singh (106),a veteran freedom fighter and social worker, passed away at his residence this morning. He was cremated with state honours.

SDM Mukul Kumar and Tehsildar Hari Om Atri laid wreaths on behalf of the district administration. Besides Karnal Mayor Renu Bala, councillors, other prominent persons attended the funeral.

Born at Bhikhi village in Shekhopura (now in Pakistan) in 1907, he also worked as a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi during the Quit India Movement in 1942. He was also honoured with "Tamra Parta". 

Bhiwani, July 31
The police has busted a gang of human traffickers by arresting three persons belonging to Rajasthan and rescuing two girls from them. The arrested persons were identified as Prem Pal from Alwar and Dhara and Pinki from Ajmer.

The police said the accused were about to sell these girls when they caught them and rescued the two girls from them. Two sisters aged 10 and eight and another girl aged seven were kidnapped on July 23 when they were playing near their house. Families of the kidnapped girls lived in huts near a guar factory in Bhiwani.

The police was informed that some unknown persons had taken away the three girls in an autorickshaw. The police received a call from Sarwara in Ajmer.

The caller, who knew the accused persons, had gone to Bhiwani for some work and got suspicious when he found that two girls in their custody wept all the time.

In a raid at Sarwara, the police succeeded in arresting the three accused and rescuing the two girls. The accused revealed that they were waiting for the customers for the two girls. The police said the accused had provided them clues to the third girl and soon they would go to Rajasthan to recover her. 

Ambala, July 31
An alert issued by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to the railway authorities has brought to light that Pakistan Intelligence Operatives (PIOs) have again succeeded in obtaining security-related tactical and strategic information by means of telephonic calls made under assumed identity of Indian defence officials from railway employees.

In August last year, The Tribune had highlighted that the IB had stumbled upon information that the PIOs had managed to extract vital information related to deployment and movement of defence forces by making calls under assumed identifies of senior defence officers. In order to camouflage their calls, the PIOs used software and Voiceover Internet Protocol to ensure that the mobile phones of the target showed the incoming calls to be originating from Indian numbers.

The PIOs were able to extract sensitive information from the unsuspecting Indian nationals by using this technique.

At that time, the IB had written a letter to the railway authorities, a copy of which is available with The Tribune, asking them not to share any information related to the movement of the Army through trains over the phone.

However, even after a year, the IB found that the PIO were still active and using the same modus operandi to extract vital information. In yet another communication sent to the railway authorities recently, the IB stated that PIO had again been “successful in ferreting out sensitive information having serious implications for the national security.”

The IB had issued strict directions to the railway authorities to sensitise their employees not to pass any information about the movement of Army trains other than the authorised person. The IB said, “Station masters and supervisors are required to be briefed to handle the telephonic calls in a cautious manner to prevent divulgence of important information.”

The IB had also asked the authorities to ensure that “the staff may be directed to follow the practice of calling the unknown callers to ascertain their identity and phone number.”

Sirsa, July 31
Dr Sushil Indora, a former Member of Parliament who represented the Sirsa parliamentary constituency twice, has staked a claim for the Congress ticket from here in the next year’s General Elections.

Presently, Ashok Tanwar represents Sirsa in Parliament. Tanwar is secretary in the All-India Congress Committee and a confidant of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

Challenging Tanwar’s authority in his constituency, which hadn’t been done by anybody thus far,

Indora made the announcement in a meeting of party workers in Sirsa today.

Sirsa District Congress President Malkiat Singh Khosa, a Tanwar’s confidant, was present in the meeting when Indora expressed his intention to seek Congress ticket from Sirsa for the next General Elections. Khosa, however, said anyone had the right to stake a claim for party ticket.

Indora was elected to the 12th Lok Sabha in 1998 and the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999 on the INLD ticket from Sirsa, but lost the seat to Atma Singh Gill of the Congress in 2004.

When the INLD did not field Indora in 2009 LS Elections, he joined the Congress before the assembly elections in the same year and fought from Kalanwali. He lost the election to Shiromani Akali Dal’s Charanjit Singh.

Indora said people belonging to erstwhile “A category” Dalits should be given their due share in the allocation of tickets and he should be fielded from Sirsa in the General Elections. 

Kurukshetra, July 31
The police claimed to have busted a gang of inter-state robbers with the arrest of six persons from a deserted shop near Kheri Markanda here on Tuesday night. The gang was allegedly planning to loot a petrol pump on the Kurukshetra-Pipli road near Sector 7, HUDA, when the police raided the shop.

The arrested persons were identified as Sandeep, Sunny, Dinesh, Praveen - all residents of Patehra village near Indri - Naveen Kumar, a resident of Kalbehri near Indri, and Balvinder, a resident of Indri. They were produced in a local court, which remanded Balvinder in judicial custody and sent others to police custody for two days.

District police chief Rakesh Kumar Arya said two motorcycles, two country-made .315 bore pistols, a country-made .12 bore pistol, one country-made .32 bore pistol, two magazines, two knives and nine live cartridges were recovered from their possession.

During interrogation, gang members revealed that the motorcycles recovered from them were lifted from Pehowa and Chandigarh, besides they had stolen two other motorcycles from Radaur and Ladwa. They also revealed that they had shot one Anil Kumar near Saharanpur in UP after snatching Rs 50,000 from him at Indri.