Chandigarh, August 26
A day before Justice Nirmal Yadav was to appear before the trial court in the cash-for-judge scam, Justice TPS Mann of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today referred the matter to another Bench.

The revision petition of Justice Yadav against the orders of framing charges is now expected to come up on Friday before some other Bench.

In the petition filed through counsel SK Garg Narwana, the former Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court claimed that the CBI special public prosecutor had conceded in his arguments that there was “no direct evidence in the present case with regard to the motive, reward and delivery of the alleged amount”.

Justice Yadav argued that the trial court took note of all contentions raised by the prosecution, but failed to record the fact conceded by the special public prosecutor. “Thus the entire approach of the Trial Court is illegal, erroneous and untenable in the eyes of law.”

She further contended that the impugned order dated July 31 had been passed without appreciating her contentions.

“Neither the legal issues raised by the petitioner have been considered nor has the Judge considered the evidence on record, which contradicts the stand of the prosecution,” Justice Yadav said.

“Still further, some of the contentions of the petitioner have not been recorded, or have been incorrectly recorded,” she added.

Seeking quashing of the order, she said it was “unsustainable and untenable in the eyes of law and deserves to be set aside”.

Narwana asserted: “The specific case of the petitioner was that there was no evidence of any official relation between the petitioner and co-accused Ravinder Singh”.

“As far as the relationship between Ravinder Singh and Sanjiv Bansal was concerned, there is no evidence in the final report/ chargesheet to suggest that the petitioner knew the relation. The prosecution, during the investigation, could not collect any evidence to say that the petitioner was having such knowledge”.

Gurgaon, August 26
The post-mortem examination conducted by doctors at the local Civil Hospital on the body of Geetanjali, wife of Gurgaon Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Ravneet Garg, has raised many questions.

Garg’s cousin as well as domestic helps had told the investigators that Geetanjali had her food a little while before she left the house. However, the autopsy report stated that Geetanjali’s stomach contained only about 100 ml of liquid (and no semi-solid food material).

This baffled the investigators as the food consumed by Geetanjali should have been found in her stomach.

Later, perusal of the video footage of the post-mortem examination by forensic experts revealed that the doctors conducting the post-mortem had not even opened the stomach.

The victim's stomach was then recalled from the state forensic science laboratory. Its re-examination established that it did contain semi-solid food matter and that it had not been opened by the doctors who performed the autopsy.

Not only this, the track and direction (s) of the bullets bruising/passing through Geetanjali’s body were not appropriately and comprehensively mentioned in the post-mortem report.

The report stated that the second bullet entered the body from the front side of the chest and also exited the body from the front, which appears to be questionable as a bullet entering the body from the front would have exited it from the back.

Then, no proper mention of the effect of the bullets on the clothes worn by Geetanjali at the time of her death has been made in the post-mortem report.

In view of the shoddy performance of autopsy and misreporting of the findings, the investigators are now getting the material evidence examined at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory.

The forensic/ballistic experts have also decided to recreate the scene of crime with the help of a dummy body.

Jind, August 26
Tension continues to grip the town a day after a 20-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly raped and murdered. Baniakhera villagers continued their protest and stayed back in the Civil Hospital here.

Dr Raj Kumar, a member of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (centre), talks to the victim’s relatives in Jind on Monday. Photo: Manoj Dhaka

Raj Kumar, a member of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, visited the relatives of the victim. While he assured them of action, he asked police officers to start a probe.

Though the relatives of the victim agreed for post-mortem at the PGIMS, Rohtak, they demanded an independent probe into the incident and release of all arrested in connection with the mob violence on Sunday.

With the violence resulting in damage of several buses, the police had arrested three persons in this connection.

Though the protesters, who were joined by the district unit of the Students Federation of India, staged a march and a protest at the Mini Secretariat for over an hour, the police authorities persuaded the relatives for a post-mortem at the PGIMS and assured them of a suitable action if the charges of rape and murder were proved.

"We have sent the body to the PGIMS for post-mortem and any action now will be based on the report’’, said SP Balwan Singh Rana. He claimed that the initial investigations into the matter had failed to establish the claim of the relatives that the girl could have been raped and murdered. 

Hisar, August 26
A teenaged rape victim from Dabra village of the district has demanded capital punishment and chemical castration of the rapists.

The girl stated that such incidents left an indelible scar on the persona of the victims. “I am trying hard to recover from the trauma which I had to undergo. When I heard such incidents, it refreshes my wounds even though I have been trying to forget the incident”.

The victim was reportedly gangraped by eight accused and two others were charged with harbouring the accused in Dabra village on September last year. Her father, however, committed suicide after coming to know about the incident nine days later, forcing the police to register a case against the rapists.

She said she wanted to become a lawyer for providing justice to the victims of sexual violence. At present pursuing her undergraduation course in a Hisar college, she said she was not satisfied with the punishment to the accused in her case as a local court had acquitted four persons while awarding life-term to the four accused.

“I have filed an appeal against the trial court decision to acquit four accused in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. All accused should be punished for the crime”, she stated, adding that tougher law such as capital punishment and chemical castration were needed to rein in the rapists.

She alleged that the Haryana Government had failed to fulfil its promise to extend financial and other help to her family. “I was promised to provide free education but am not getting any aid. The promise to provide job to my brother is also unfulfilled. My family has been facing financial problem as we have shifted to Hisar from the village after the incident. We are living at a rented accommodation and a contractual job to my mother is the only source of income to the family”, she said.

The Dalit activist and lawyer Rajat Kalsan demanded immediate arrest of the accused in the Jind rape and murder case that cto light on Sunday and the victim’s family should be given Rs 20 lakh as compensation and a government job. He also demanded departmental action against the policemen who resorted to lathicharge on the protesters in Jind.

Kurukshetra, August 26
Rinku, a resident of Sandeer, Karnal, Balinder Singh, a resident of Travari, Karnal and Hardeep Singh, a resident of Klalmajra, Ludhiana district in Punjab, were arrested under the NDPS Act today. About 40 gm, 20 gm and 10 gm smack was recovered from their possession, respectively.

During interrogation, Rinku and Balinder told the police that they worked for Pratap alias Tabbu, a resident of Dera Salpani and Amit, a resident of Travari in Karnal district and were paid Rs 25,000 each per month for smuggling the drugs.

Pratap and Amit are yet to be arrested.

The arrested persons were produced in the court, which remanded them to judicial custody.

Chandigarh, August 26
The protest against land acquisition proceedings in Rewari last year where a farmer-police clash left many injured was the handiwork of “outsiders with vested interests” who mingled with farmers and ignited passions, leading to blocking of the highway and policemen being held hostage.

The Commission of Inquiry constituted under Justice Iqbal Singh, in his 181-page report submitted to the Haryana Government last week, has suggested that the government should consider dropping the cases registered against farmers for rioting and damaging public property during the protest and that medical compensation be awarded to the farmers and policemen alike.

Though he has stated that like the farmers, the policemen too were at the receiving end, the report points out that the police may have failed to act in time to avoid such a situation. The report states that the police should have realised the gravity of the situation and made preventive arrests, especially since Section 144 of the CrPC had been clamped on that area.

Justice Iqbal Singh has justified this by maintaining that the intention of the farmers was only a peaceful agitation against the acquisition of land in their area. However, they were led astray after the agitation was “infiltrated by outsiders” who had absolutely no stake in the area. They incited the protesting farmers and misguided them till things came to such a pass that a police-farmer clash took place, leaving many injured on both sides.

Having studied nearly 6,100 documents and affidavits during the course of the inquiry, the commission has upheld the decision of the government to issue a notice for acquisition and even given a thumbs-up to the industrial project to come up on the land. The commission has also recommended that the land left after the completion of the intended project should be turned into a green belt.

In his report, Justice Iqbal Singh has recommended that the DC should be made overall in charge of the district as far as law and order is concerned and that he should be given the authority to write the SP’s annual confidential report.

Repeatedly maintaining that the sole cause of unrest among farmers is the difference between the market value and the compensation given to them, he has appreciated the state government’s rehabilitation and resettlement policy which keeps the farmers’ interest in mind.

Adding that the “shrinking land holdings” are the bone of contention, he has added that land acquisition should be a transparent affair, allowing trading in the open market.

In July last year, irate villagers had tried to block the National Highway-8 and were cane-charged by policemen. The villagers were chased away by the policemen but they retaliated.

Since the farmers outnumbered the policemen present in the village, they went on a rampage, torching vehicles, digging up the highway and taking some policemen hostage. It was days after the tense situation had eased and on the demand of the farmers, the government had set up a commission.

Bhiwani, August 26
Girl students of Government Women College in Jhonjhu Kalan village blocked the Dadri Loharu road in Bhiwani district today in protest against the lack of public transport on the route.

Haryana minister Satpal Sangwan tries to pacify agitated college girls Birhi Kalan village on Monday.

Cooperation and Housing Minister and local MLA Satpal Sangwan also got stuck in the jam when he was going to Loharu from Dadri. The students did not let the minister to go until he talked to the roadways authorities and ensure plying of buses on the route and also issue instructions to bus drivers to halt buses to pick up students from stoppages at their villages.

Hundreds of girls gathered at the bus stand in Birhi Kalan village and blocked the road as the roadways bus staff did not halt buses at the designated stops in the village in the morning.The police which reached the spot tried to placate the agitated girls but they refused to budge until a senior official of the district administration came to redress their grievance. When Sangwan met the girls, they told him that despite several representations to the district authorities, the problem remained unresolved.

Sangwan called up the roadways general manager (GM) and directed him to ply two special buses for students from Dadri to Jhonjhu Kalan village. He also asked the GM to issue instructions to stop buses at each village stoppages. After the minister's instructions, the girls lifted the blockade.

Blockade in Jhajjar for special girl buses

Jhajjar: Girl students of different schools and colleges today blocked the Jhajjar-Rohtak road at toll plaza of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) here for over two hours. They sat on the middle of the road and disrupted the vehicular traffic.

They were demanding separate roadways buses for women on the route, stating that girls faced difficulties in travelling in private buses and jeeps to go to their schools and colleges.

They said they had been raising this demand for long but no officer was ready to pay any heed to it. They had to blocked the road to attract the attention of the district authorities towards their demand.

The police rushed to the spot and tried to persuade the protesting girls to clear the road but they did not relent and demanded assurance from any senior administrative official. When the General Manager (Roadways) assured them to ply separate buses on the route soon, they lifted the blockade.

Karnal, August 26
A number of Hindu organisations today staged a demonstration across the city to protest against the crackdown on the '84-kos yatra' by the UP government and submitted a memorandum addressed to the President to the Karnal Deputy Commissioner.

Members of various organisations, including Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, gathered at Karan Park under the leadership of Swami Divyanand Yogiraj and marched towards the DC office. They condemned the UP government for imposing a ban on the sadhus' yatra.

The members demanded that the ban on the yatra be immediately revoked or a state-wide agitation would follow. 

Sonepat, August 26
A four-member team of the Bar Council of India today visited the Law Department of BPS Women University, Khanpur Kalan, to inspect the facilities there.

The team was led by BS Rathore, co-chairman of the Bar Council of India. Other members included TS Ajith, a member of the Indian Bar Council; Vijender Ahlawat, a member of the Bar Council of the Punjab and Haryana High Court; and Dr Naresh Vats, assistant professor at the Law Department of Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra.

The team took first-hand information about the academic, sports, boarding and research facilities available in the department. 

Hisar, August 26
The students of the College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, locked up the college today in support of their demands to include BTech Agriculture Engineering as a qualification for the post of agriculture development officer and to create a separate directorate for agriculture engineering.

The students staged a dharna outside the college after locking it up, alleging that the government had failed to heed to their demands, even as they had been raising the same for the past four year.

However, Vice-Chancellor Dr KS Khokhar talked to the students and appealed to them to call off the strike and resume studies.

He said their demands pertained to the Haryana Government and were not directly concerned to the university. He assured the protesters that their demands would be taken up with the state government.

Sonepat, August 26
Dr KC Bangar, the INLD’s state spokesman, has opposed the decision of the academic council of MD University, Rohtak, to remove the name of Chaudhary Devi Lal from Government Women College, Murthal, in Sonepat and warned that any such move would be opposed strongly.

The college was opened and named after Chaudhary Devi Lal when Om Prakash Chautala was the Chief Minister from 2000 to 2005.

Talking to mediapersons here, Bangar said the decision was taken by the academic council of the university was against the wishes of the people. “The party will not tolerate it,” he said. Let the names of Congress leaders like Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi also be removed from all institutions, he added.

He said the INLD would support Narender Modi whether there was any alliance with the BJP or not. He claimed that the party would perform better in the coming elections.