Daughter dead, cops ignoring, poor carpenter sees hope in court order

April 21, 2010, Wednesday, Sumit Saxena, Hindustan Times

New Delhi: For a 65-year-old man, there’s nothing more heart breaking than seeing the last rites of his child. Jameel Safi, a carpenter by profession, is one man who has suffered this torment.

On January 2, 2010, Safi’s elder daughter, Shabana (35), was found dead in mysterious circumstances in her matrimonial house.

Tired of her husband Salim Safi’s gambling ways due to which the family was reduced to penury, and the daily torture he inflicted on her, Shabana, a mother of four, had reportedly committed suicide.

Earlier, Shabana had expressed to Safi her fear for her life at the hands of Salim. Soon after his daughter’s death, Safi approached the police, but only to be disappointed as no FIR was registered.

Safi did not even have enough funds to pay for his elder daughter’s post-mortem report.

On April 7, Safi broke down in the court of Delhi High Court Justice S.N. Aggarwal and asked for “justice for the cold-blooded murder of my daughter.” The court, citing it as a cognisable offence, asked the additional standing counsel to file a status report within a week.

Speaking to HT, Safi recalled the horrors he went through to get justice for her daughter.

“I have no money to bribe police. People ask me to pay for my daughter’s post-mortem report. I have exhausted all my funds in past four months chasing police officials,” Safi said.

He spoke about his first appearance in the Delhi High court. “I told the judge about my condition and requested the judiciary to have mercy for the poor. A poor man’s daughter was brutally murdered please give me justice,” Safi added.

Alim Mizaj, Safi’s counsel, told the court, “Till date we have not got the post-mortem report. After court orders, police registered an FIR, but in abetment to suicide, on April 16”.

He contended that Safi had pleaded before the police at Jamia Nagar police station, but was always forced out. The next hearing is on April 21.

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Justice for my child

April 21, 2010, Wednesday, Vijaita Singh, Hindustan Times

New Delhi: Mohammad Ayub Khan (40) is jobless these days. The marriage season is off so the part-time waiter banks on his savings to run his family.

Living in a shanty in Bawana on the outskirts of Delhi, he commutes to the Delhi High Court in a Blueline bus every time his daughter’s case come up for hearing.

On April 15, last year, 12-year-old Shanno—the eldest of Khan’s three daughters—died after she was allegedly made to squat in the sun by her teacher at an MCD school. Shanno was a student of Class II.

While the police say that Shanno suffered from epilepsy and that they did not find any evidence that she was subjected to corporal punishment, Shanno’s father refuses give up.

“I have not missed a single hearing. I hope justice would be meted to my daughter. The teacher should not go unpunished. I visit the school now and then to enquire if the teacher is back at the job or not. I would not let that happen,” said Khan, while he waited for his daughter’s case to come up for hearing at Court number 32.

The English teacher—Manju Rathi—is still under suspension. Khan said since there were no schools in the area and due to economic constraints, he was forced to send his daughters to the MCD school near their home.

After his eldest daughter died, Khan sent his other two daughters—Shaina and Shehnaz—to an orphanage in Batla House area of south Delhi.

“Whenever there is a holiday I bring my two daughters home. Had I known that my daughter would die while getting education, I would not have sent her to school at all,” said Khan.

After she was allegedly punished by her teacher for not completing her homework, Shanno collapsed in the school premises.

“She was made to squat in the sun with bricks on her back. The school informed us late. A hawker who was passing by rushed her to the hospital. There was clear negligence on their part,” said Khan. Two days later, Shanno was shifted to Lok Nayak Jaiprakash Hospital where she died on April 20.

“The matter is pending in the High Court. The investigation does not say she was subjected to corporal punishment,” said Karnal Singh, JCP (northern range).

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/newdelhi/Justice-for-my-child/Article1-533877.aspx

Court arranges dialysis for man

April 21, 2010, Wednesday, HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday came to the rescue of a poor 37-year-old man with dysfunctional kidneys and who has been running from pillar-to-post to get a dialysis done.

The court directed Safdarjung Hospital to provide Dinesh Gupta, a cab driver by profession, ‘maintenance hemodialysis’ treatment on Wednesday.

The order came after Gupta moved court through lawyer R.K. Saini alleging that AIIMS had denied him maintenance hemodialysis as part of his ongoing treatment and that he couldn’t afford a private hospital.

The court also asked AIIMS if it would provide regular dialysis to the patient twice a week as was advised.

The AIIMS lawyer said that the institute did not provide maintenance hemodialysis but regular dialysis.

Gupta said his kidney problem began in June 2008, but had aggravated due to a wrong diagnosis by a local doctor. Since December 2008, he was under AIIMS treatment and had arranged two relatives for kidney donation, but they were not a fit match, Gupta said.

As his health condition deteriorated and he could not hunt for a suitable donor, the AIIMS doctors advised him to get hemodialysis twice a week till one of his damaged kidneys is transplanted.

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In a mix-up, Supreme Court sends 4 persons to jail and frees 4 others

Apr 21, 2010, Wednesday, J. Venkatesan, The Hindu

New Delhi: In a rare instance, the Supreme Court in November 2008 committed a mistake by sending four persons to jail without hearing them.

Again, while recalling this order on a curative petition, it committed another mistake in March this year by wrongly releasing the four co-accused who were convicted after having been heard in appeals.

This was brought to the notice of the court on Tuesday during ‘mention' time before a Bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and B.S. Chauhan.

After hearing counsel who said that those who were acquitted earlier and who surrendered in court after the Supreme Court verdict were still in jail, and those who had been convicted were released, the Chief Justice said: “If we have committed a mistake, we will correct it. We will hear the petition in the first week of May.”

In a murder case in Madhya Pradesh, the Shivpuri sessions judge had awarded life imprisonment to Sughar Singh, Laxman, Onkar, Ramesh, Bhoja, Raghubir, Puran and Balbir. On their appeals, the Madhya Pradesh High Court set aside the trial court verdict and acquitted all the eight accused.

The aggrieved State filed in the Supreme Court an appeal which was, however, confined to the first four persons, and the others were not impleaded as respondents.

On November 7, 2008, a Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakker and L.S. Panta (all of them have since retired) reversed the order of acquittal and held the four respondents guilty and awarded them six-year imprisonment.

The other four, who were not made party in the appeal, were also found guilty without being heard, and sentenced to six-year imprisonment.

Curative petition

Shocked at this judgment, Raghubir, Sughar Singh and Laxman filed curative petitions (A curative petition is filed after the dismissal of a petition seeking review of the original judgment).

On March 9 this year, a Bench of four senior judges — Justices Balakrishnan, S.H. Kapadia, Altamas Kabir and R.V. Raveendran — in its order, said: “We see that there is a serious violation of principles of natural justice as the acquittal of all the accused has been set aside even though only four of them were made respondents before this court and the others were not heard. We, are therefore, constrained to recall the November 7, 2008 judgment. Consequently the accused Sughar Singh, Laxman, Onkar and Ramesh, if they are in custody, are directed to be released forthwith.”

Modification sought

In the present petitions, Bhoja, Puran, Balbir and Raghubir brought to the notice of the court that those who were ordered released were the respondents in the appeals who were heard. Instead of directing the releasing the present applicants, the court had wrongly released the other four.
They prayed for modification of the order and a direction for their immediate release.

http://www.thehindu.com/2010/04/21/stories/2010042154031300.htm

Custodial death: Four cops booked

April 13, 2010, Tuesday, Peeyush Khandelwal, Hindustan Times

Senior police officials registered a criminal case against a Station Officer, a Sub-Inspector and two constables for negligence of duty after a double-murder accused hanged himself inside the lock-up of the Bahadur Garh police station on Monday morning, police said.

Dharmendra Singh (32) —wanted in connection with double murders — was found hanging on the window-grill inside the lock-up, police said. Last month, two persons were allegedly murdered by Singh and his accomplices in a case of ‘honour killing’ on March 19.

As per Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Raghubir Lal, one of the victims, named Rakesh Kumar (45) had illicit relations

with Singh’s sister and made sexual advances towards her younger daughter.

“Infuriated with all this, Singh planned their murders and strangulated Kumar and his friend on March 19, with the help of four of his accomplices. Their bodies were recovered on March 27,” Lal said.

On Monday, Singh’s family had staged protests outside the Bahadur Garh police station and alleged foul play in the case.

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No bail for man behind Rs 50 crore housing fraud

April 13, 2010, Wednesday, Harish V. Nair, Hindustan Times

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sent out a strong message to builders who dupe gullible investors looking for dream homes at affordable prices. The HC denied bail to Chairman and Managing Director, Lakshmi Vatika Ltd, D K Aggarwal who has spent 16 months in jail for housing fraud.

Aggarwal allegedly duped over 5,000 investors to the tune of Rs 50 crore by promising them houses in Dehradun, Mumbai, Mohali and Patna. Though he charged Rs 50,000 to Rs 7 lakh from investors, Aggarwal never had the land nor infrastructure.

He operated from a swanky office at Barakhamba Road, placed ads in English dailies and got a Bollywood actress to endorse 'housing projects'.

As per the complaint to the police, Aggarwal allegedly represented to the public that Vatika owned 100 acres of land in Dehradun for developing a dream project 'Drona City' but later it transpired they did not own even an inch of land there and even the Bhoomi Pujan ceremony was stage-managed. The case was probed by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police.


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Discom turns to crime, pulled up

April 13, 2010, Wednesday, Avishek G. Dastidar, Hindustan Times

If you have been paying your electricity bills regularly and yet find power company officials at your doorstep for inspection of meter, beware.

Discom BSES Rajdhani (BRPL) has just been found guilty of falsely implicating a South Delhi consumer after framing up a power theft case.

The capital's power regulator has fined BRPL Rs 1 lakh for the criminal act and also for destroying evidence and deliberately harassing the consumer.

Besides, one of the company's area managers have been imposed with a personal penalty of Rs 5,000, to be deducted from his salary while the customer will get Rs 20,000 as compensation.

The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission directed BRPL to instruct its employees to “desist from doing any illegal, unwarranted action” and be careful during inspections.

Vasant Kunj resident Suresh Sharam, who won the battle against the city's biggest discom that services 70% of Delhi, said incidents like this were rampant.

“The confidence with which they framed the case step by step was proof enough that they are used to doing this,” he said.

He said one fine day last year, a team of discom officials reached his house and demanded to inspect the electricity meter saying they had enough information to prove that Sharma was stealing electricity. The inspection happened in the absence of Sharma or any adult member of the family, as is the law.

Sharma's minor son stood watching as the officials tore out the meter, hit it with hammer and rods to plant some marks of "tampering" and then claimed that the meter was tampered, Sharma told the electricity commission.

“They basically wanted me to cough up money,” Sharma, an MNC executive, said.

But what proved to be the undoing for BRPL was that according to law, enforcement drives like this are to be video recorded for evidence in court. Looking at the video footage, the commission found the officials guilty.

When asked, the discom couldn’t answer why exactly the raid was conducted.

HT asked BRPL what steps it has taken to make sure such incidents are not repeated but BSES officials refused to comment. Neither its CEO Gopal Saxena nor his representatives reverted with any response.

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