Delhi underground

Passing judgment
During a hearing last week at the Tis Hazari courts,a judge sentenced two women to nine years in jail for child trafficking and slapped a fine of Rs 11 lakh on them. The lawyer,who a short while ago had vehemently argued for lenient punishment to the two,was shocked as he had never expected a monetary penalty of such an enormity. Failing to control his anguish,he blurted out before the judge that the verdict was not going to change anything in society and that his use of “strong and heavy” words was pointless. In his response,the judge smiled and told the lawyer,“You are too senior to say such things. I am doing what my job entails and your anger only shows that you have failed in yours. It is unfair to blame me for your let down,isn’t it?” The lawyer stood red-faced.

Price hike
Amid speculation about the DDA’s reasons for hiking the price fixed by the price fixation committee for purchasing flats in the Commonwealth Games Village from developer Emaar-MGF,a DDA official said that the price had to be raised as Emaar-MGF did not agree to sell the flats at the rate prescribed by the price fixation committee. The official said the developer found the prescribed rate too low and with barely a year left for the deadline for the completion of the project,the land developing body had little choice but to hike the rate. “Even if we were to decide to hand over the project to another builder at this point,we would need to give Emaar-MGF six months notice and we don’t have six months,” the official said.

Paying the price
Reluctance in taking action over the complaint of a judge’s daughter-in-law has resulted in grave damage to the Station House Officer (SHO) of the newly-constituted Barakhamba Police Station. The officer has been suspended indefinitely for not heeding to the complaint that had accused beat constables of the area of demanding a bribe from the relative of the Delhi High Court judge who was to open an office in Antariksh Bhawan near the Hindustan Times building. She had put in a complaint but the SHO reportedly sat on it. The matter then reached the senior officers of the department and in no time,the SHO along with three other junior cops was shown the door.

‘Nothing unusual’
With strict instructions from the Ministry of Culture and the higher-ups in the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI),officials in the heritage body have been tight-lipped on the projects undertaken by it. Whenever asked about the Commonwealth Games projects,even senior officials in the ASI maintain ‘work is on as usual’ and ‘nothing outstanding is happening on the project’. Whether the ASI wants to keep its work at the heritage structures a pleasant surprise for the Games or it is actually being candid about its lax pace of work remains to be seen.

Fighting for credit
Who doesn’t want to be credited with the success of an IIT-JEE topper? Coaching institutes certainly want all of it. Ever since Nitin Jain from Faridabad topped this week,two coaching institutes have been scrambling to attribute his achievement to their diligence. Two days after the declaration of results,FIIT-JEE coaching institute ran a full page advertisement of the boy in a national daily praising its coaching. A couple of days later,Aakash Institute ran another full- page advertisement of the same boy. Both printed Jain’s admission form in case anybody bothered to ask for proof. Wonder which institute Nitin actually went to?

Upbeat Congress
BJP councillors might be ruling the roost in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) but with the Congress government back in power at the Centre,Congress councillors in the civic body appeared to be in an exuberant mood in the first House meeting after the Lok Sabha results. Leader of the Opposition Jai Kishan Sharma distributed sweets in the House to celebrate the victory and Congress councillors chanted ‘Jai Ho’ and ‘Rahul Gandhi,Sonia Gandhi Zindabad’ right in the middle of the proceedings of the House.