Jalandhar, October 26
Coming as a major boon to the litigants and lawyers, all decisions of the local District and Sessions Court are being uploaded on the web the same day.

Log on to ecourts.gov.in and search for any judgment via case number, court number, party name and order date and one can retrieve the copy of the same. While earlier only the daily case list was being uploaded, now even the case status and interim orders can be had by searching via FIR number, party name, advocate name, case code, Act or case type.

The link to the page can also be had from the official website of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, www.highcourtchd.gov.in and then clicking on the "national data grid" button on the right side of the page.

After clicking on any search options such as court number, one has to choose the Punjab state and Jalandhar district, after which other options open up such as Chief Judicial Magistrate, Civil Judge Senior Division, District and Sessions Court, Taluka Court Nakodar, Taluka Court Phillaur.

On clicking on any of these options, for example, District and Sessions Court the list of names of judges, including District and Sessions Judge JS Klar, Additional District and Sessions Judges also pop up. On choosing the name of the judge, all judgments passed by him open up datewise going backwards.

Officials of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) said the courts had been provided with a server room and server managers to keep uploading the work. They said training had been provided to the judges and their supporting staff. The NIC had also provided laptops to the judges for their convenience.

President of the District Bar Association Mandeep Singh Sachdev said while earlier the judgments were being uploaded and sent to the Supreme Court daily, it was now that the portal had been made public. “It, of course, will be of big help to our entire community and public for quick references,” he said.

Jalandhar, October 26
After a flip-flop of orders pertaining to the alleged encroachment of a prime village common land, measuring 32 kanal and 17 marlas, at Kot Kalan village from the courts of the District Development and Panchayat Officer and Director Rural Development, the village panchayat has now had to take a legal recourse to reclaim it.

Since the land falls just along the Jalandhar-Phagwara highway, the value of this land is said to be over Rs 40 crore. On a complaint by the gram panchayat through sarpanch Som Lal against the alleged encroacher Inder Singh under Section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands Act, former District Development and Panchayat Officer Jalandhar Sarabjit Singh Walia, on October 12, 2011, had decided the case in favour the panchayat while imposing a penalty of Rs 3 lakh on him. However, former director of the department Balwinder Singh Multani had, on March 9, 2012, accepted the appeal of Inder Singh restoring the land to him and rejecting the orders of the DDPO.

Block Development and Panchayat Officer (East) Manoj Dhand said the panchayat had now moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the orders of the director with the next date of hearing fixed for November 27.

The sarpanch of the village had, in April 2011, moved the court of the then DDPO-cum-Collector (Panchayat Lands) with a plea that the ownership of the land was with the panchayat with the current lease rate of Rs 30,000 per acre per year which should be returned with a penalty. He said that column number 4 of the land records mentioned the ownership with the panchayat and Inder Singh’s name was entered as a rent-free tenant. He alleged that the original rent free tenants had died while selling off this land wrongfully.

The DDPO found that as per the old land records, Nand Lal, Hukam Chand and Chiranji Lal were the original rent-free tenants which they were not themselves tilling in 1960-61. “Inder Singh has stated that he bought the right of rent-free tenants from the original trio, which he could not actually do,” he said. He had decided the case in favour of the panchayat with a penalty of Rs 3,01,875 imposed. Reverting the orders, the director had passed orders, “Inder Singh’s name has come in the column of tillers on the basis of a sale deed which the gram panchayat has not challenged. The gram panchayat has not presented any such record which proves that the land in question had been reserved for any common purpose. The claim of Inder Singh is old and he cannot be evicted.”

Goraya (Bara Pind), Oct 26
For the past many years, students of Government Senior Secondary School (Boys), Bara Pind, are making do in a hall room and three rooms over it to make up for the absence of 10 rooms which, even though unsafe, are not being declared so by the Public Works Department (PWD) despite repeated requests.

The boys senior secondary school has 479 students and is presently functioning from seven rooms, with others being used for the library, labs, hall and ROT class. With 89 students in the IXth standard, 100 in the Xth, 84 in the XIth standard and 76 in the XIIth standard, the students of the school need to be divided into sections, but due to the shortage of 10 rooms that can’t be done. So the wait for a go-ahead from the administration and the resulting dearth in classrooms, is also keeping the school deprived of fresh grants for new rooms.

The classes are presently being run in huge sections. When Jalandhar Tribune visited the school, classes were being taken in the hall, the library and even in the unsafe building which had wood panels peeking out.

It is also a common practice to serve the mid-day meal in the unsafe verandah with the wood logs dangling from the dilapidated roof. Due to the dearth of rooms, the eco-club lessons of the school have to be held in the unsafe section.

The staff room is also situated in the same area due to the want of rooms. While a look at the roof, by any casual visitor, is enough to tell that the building is on the brink of falling, the PWD (similar to the plight of many other schools in the district) hasn’t bothered to grant an unsafe certificate to the school. Two other rooms on the other side of the building have fallen. They are currently out of use.

A majority of the rooms in the unsafe building also stay locked. While the school has 20 sanctioned posts of staff presently, 17 are filled. While a commerce section is also set to be started at the school from April 1, 2014, additional five posts have been sanctioned for the commerce course for secondary classes, but none of the posts have been filled so far.

Indiscipline rife

A chain was found tied to one of the chairs in the staff room, as the staff said students often picked these and took them outside. Many students were seen with spiked hair and un-tucked shirts. It could be gauged that indiscipline was one of the problems plaguing the school. But teachers have time and again opined that some of the crippling edicts of the RTE Act (not to fail students, no corporal punishment, disallowing students name to be struck off school lists) hadn’t left them with too many options.

Jalandhar, October 26
For 22-year-old Aashna, who was abandoned by her parents in childhood, a lovely ceremony today brought answers to her prayers. Almost two months after her karmic sister from the foster home she was living in, was married off, the wedding of Aashna, another inmate of the Pushpa Gujral Nari Niketan, took place at the home here today.

Aashna’s husband is a security officer at an MNC in Coimbatore.

Orphaned himself at a young age, he first came to know about the Nari Niketan through its website and approached the home authorities to find a wife. Within months, he got to know about Aashna and the matter was fixed.

The wedding ahead of the festival season brought cheers both for inmates and staff of the home. Two more girls are of a marriageable age.

Anjana Talwar, general secretary of the trust who conducted the kanyadaan, said, “It makes us happy to think many of our girls who have seen childhoods devoid of any hope, are now happily settled. We are also seeking suitable matches for the remaining two girls. While wedding bells are about to ring soon for one of them who shall have a love marriage (we have seen the groom and met his mother, but the boy wants to wait for two more years), talks are also on for the other.”

Inmates and staff members were present at the wedding ceremony.

Trustees Seema Chopra, Gurjot, Meena Sondhi, CEO Colonel Sukhpal Singh (Retd) were also present.

Jalandhar, October 26
In a glaring example of medical negligence, a Dalit patient with fractured arm was allegedly forcibly discharged by emergency medical officer (EMO) at the Civil Hospital here.

Patient Gurbachan Singh told The Tribune that he was rushed to the Civil Hospital soon after he was attacked at his house at Kotla village on September 17.

“I sustained injuries on my head and left arm, but I was forcibly discharged at the behest of some of my assailants at around 8.45 pm, within 45 minutes of arriving at the hospital,” he alleged.

Denying the charges, EMO Surinder Pal said, “I applied stitches on his head, advised him to get admitted for getting X-ray of his arm done next day but he expressed his willingness in writing to be discharged.” Gurbachan said, “The doctor applied some stitches on my head but did not care for fracture in the left arm. I was asked to sign some papers, I did so without reading anything as I am not much educated. Secondly, I was not aware on what papers I was asked to sign.”

Terming it a case of serious medical negligence, BSP district secretary Kamaldev Jandusingha said, “It is the duty of the doctor to decide whether the patient should be discharged or admitted according to his condition.”

Kamaldev, accompanied by Gurbachan also submitted a written complaint to the medical superintendent (MS) Dr Jagjit Singh Cheema on Tuesday.

Confirming this, Dr Cheema said, “I have asked Dr Inderjit Khanna to look into the mater.”

Interestingly, the patient again went to the hospital due to unbearable pain next day on September 18. Then, he was admitted and Dr AS Saini applied a plaster after conducting a surgery and implanting some plates in his arm on September 21.

Meanwhile, Kamaldev said the hospital did not even send any medico-legal report (MLR) to the Maqsudan police station where an FIR of attack had been registered under various sections, including 452 of the IPC.

Gurbachan alleged, “We were attacked with lathis by Balbir Singh, his wife Parveen, their son Sanju, Lakshmi and her son Manju at the behest of local Congress leader Anup Singh Bhola as we did not support his wife who had tried his luck for the post of sarpanch in the recent panchayat elections.”

Jalandhar, October 26
Nealry 1,00,000 students move out from India to USA, every year. Along with the "brain drain" it exploits parents financially, often leading to hardships. There are only a few parents who can afford to spend on higher education abroad.

A survey points out that nearly 85 per cent of engineers trained in India are unemployed. This crisis can be turned into an opportunity that's far greater than 1,00,000 students trickling to USA.

Nearly 1.5 million students from India and neighbouring countries can be trained in India if one finds ways to provide education like North American standard at US$ 10,000 per year. This will prompt US and Canada to start new education ventures in India. Simple maths adds up to US$ 15 billion, the size of market opportunity for North American Universities.

Was the extract from the address by a delegation of Punjab Technical University (PTU) and its affiliated colleges at Global Engineering Deans' Council (GEDC) Conference 2013 held in Chicago.

The delegation is currently on a two-week visit to the USA and Canada to forge research and educational collaborations between India and North American Universities.

Dr Rajneesh Arora, Vice-Chancellor, PTU, said, "Punjab can break the logjam and invite global universities to look beyond IITs and big cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru."

"USA has become global hub of higher education because of knowledge creation and dissemination. Leading institutions create knowledge and disseminate the same by attracting learners to their premise or by exporting knowledge. The USA has had a flow of learners because it has created an ecosystem, infrastructure, better living standards, safety and security."

Jalandhar, October 26
The parents of a 9th class girl of the Government Senior Secondary School, Moron, who went missing after heading off to a neighbouring village to appear in an exam, are still clueless about her whereabouts even after six days' time.

With a morose silence enveloping the courtyard of their quaint Moron village home, Majar Singh (the girl’s father) and his relatives awaiting visitors offering condolences for their lost daughter.

Squatting on the floor, the girl’s mother Sukhwinder Kaur, seems oblivious of the world. A cook at the Moron government primary school, she hasn’t gone to school ever since her daughter went missing.

Simran (19) (name changed) headed off to neighbouring Apra village with two friends (studying in the same school and class) last Sunday, telling them she had to appear for a paper in Apra. She never returned.

While a relative of her girl friends informed them that she had eloped. Since then, they have constantly been searching for her.

The very same day (October 20), they filed a missing person’s report at the Apra police station.

While the police began investigating, queries from her two girl friends revealed that she had reportedly eloped with a person befriended through a mobile chat on her friend’s phone.

Her parents say the latest claims by the police reveal that the girl has married the same boy.

“One of her girl friends told me that they began chatting with a guy after a wrong number call (he made). They began liking him. Eventually plans emerged. The police say the two are married now,” said Simran’s mother.

Simran’s uncle Pavittar Singh says, “Call details from one of the girls’ phones, traced a number to Bhaddarwal village in Barnala. I and some other relatives and village folk from visited Barnala. But the number belonged to a boy who said it was a lost sim card. He didn’t know who was using it.

A man claiming to be the said boy’s uncle (chacha), however, said their family had recently had a court marriage. But we could neither find our daughter nor the boy or any of his other family members.”

“The police was saying the couple would come to the police station today but we waited till afternoon and no one came, so we came back. Now we have been called at 11 am tomorrow again. Hopefully they will come,” adds Pavittar.

“We were planning to marry her off and we had also begun getting offers from prospective grooms. If she told us, we would have happily married her off. We have no clue why she chose to run away. I am waiting to ask her where I went wrong? There wasn’t an occasion when I didn’t listen to her demands,” said Sukhwinder.

Simrar’s father Majar Singh is a daily wage labourer.

Pushp Bali, ASI, Apra police station says, “We have received information that the girl is now married. We don’t know why she didn’t come today.”

Jalandhar, October 26
Based on the key topic ‘science and mathematical innovation’ given by the National Science Museum, Kolkata a science exhibition of various models, prepared by government school students in the district was held at the Government Senior Secondary School, Hazara. The sub topics based on which the models were made, included energy, agriculture, resources, health and environment.

The exhibition was held under the supervision of DEO (senior secondary) Neelam Kumari and district science supervisor S Baljinder Singh with able coordination from school principal Gurmkh Singh. During the exhibition students of tehsil Jalandhar-2 of the secondary and senior secondary categories, presented 95 models. Elementary students presented 36 models.

Students were made aware about the issues like use of drugs, problems of adolescents, population education, woman empowerment and environment education at an adolescence fair being held simultaneously.

During this fair, 45 teams participated in quiz contest, 44 for essay writing, 58 for poster making. As many as 63 schools participated.

The models during the science fair were judged by Sukhdev Lal, Yogesh Kumar, Santokh Singh, Vijay Sharma, Sandeep Kumar, Deepti Vaid, Kavita, Palvinder Singh, Lalit Kalia, Rajiv Handa, Bhupinder Singh and Rakesh Gautam. Sukhjinder Singh and Sukhvinder Singh judged the slogan writing and poster making contest. Essay writing was judged by Naresh Sahrma and Dinesh Kumar while quiz contest was judged by Naresh Kumar Sharma, Shashi Kumar, Amrik Singh and Kuldip Singh.

The exhibition was inaugurated by DEO secondary.