`Dr Tanwar visited Kesri’s house two days before his murder’

The same day at about 9 p.m., he also received a call from Kesri’s house after which he went to the latter’s house only to come back after about half an hour, Kaveri Tanwar said, adding that even after his return he was looking sad.

The affidavit was filed in pursuance of a court direction to the Delhi Police for further probe into the connection of Kesri, alleged to be close to Tanwar (who was working at a central government health scheme dispensary at Pandara Road here), with the murder. The court was hearing a public interest petition filed by the All India Young Lawyers Union (AIYLU) through counsel Kamini Jaiswal and S.N. Pandey alleging that the police was not investigating the matter properly as Kesri was involved in the case. High Court dismisses contempt petition against AIIMS director The Delhi high court has dismissed a petition for initiation of contempt proceedings against Director of AIIMS, P.K. Dave, for allegedly filing false affidavits in a pending court case.

Justice Manmohan Sarin pointed out to the counsel for petitioner Swapna Naskar Williamson, who was not allowed to register for a Ph.D. course, that “no ground for civil contempt petition is made out as per Section 2(B) of the Contempt of Courts Act”.

The petitioner agreed with the court and sought withdrawal of the contempt petition and the court dismissed the petition as withdrawn. The High Court had earlier disposed of a petition by Williamson, who had challenged the denial of admission to Ph.D. Course on job, while directing the AIIMS authorities to consider petitioner’s representation within six weeks. Williamson filed contempt petition as the AIIMS took over three months to decide the representation and alleged that replies filed by AIIMS in the earlier case were false and was an attempt to mislead the court.

However, the court while dismissing the contempt petition said, “It would be open for the petitioner to seek such remedies as are available at law.” FIR against four MMTC officials THE Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a First Information Report (FIR) against four former top officials of the state-owned MMTC for allegedly causing a loss of Rs. 1.89 crore to the exchequer by illegally sanctioning 36 kilograms of gold to private firms under the gold loan scheme during 1992-94.

The FIR filed in the court of special judge Ajit Bharihoke has named former director R. Khosla, two former General Managers Y.N. Bhargava and C.R. Rajan and former deputy general manager P.S. Shastri.

The other accused named in the case are, owner of a firm, Balaji Export, Vijay Kumar Jha, his son Akshay Jha, the owner of Durga Export, Vivek Sood and the owner of Ganesh Export, Rajeev Bakshi.

The FIR states that the MMTC officials had abused their position as public servants and without verifying the actual existence, economic viability, financial capacity and eligibility of the firms, had sanctioned the gold.“These firms dishonestly misappropriated the entire 36 kilograms of gold and the equivalent packing credit limit by neither exporting the jewellery within 120 days of withdrawal of gold from the MMTC nor refunding the value of gold and thereby causing undue pecuniary loss to the tune of Rs.1.89 crore to the MMTC”, the CBI has alleged.

HC for a committee to look into power irregularities

The Delhi High Court said on Tuesday that an expert committee be formed to look into power thefts, irregular billings and power shortage in the city.The court was hearing a writ petition filed by the president of Common Cause H.D. Shourie seeking prevention of over 40 per cent power theft in the Capital.

Justice Jaspal Singh asked petitioner H.D. Shourie, Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) and DVB employees unions to suggest names of persons who should participate in the committee to suggest ways and means to eradicate these problems.

When Shourie suggested that the committee should be headed by a retired High Court judge, Justice Singh said that it should be an expert committee and a High Court retired judge has nothing to do with it.

The matter will come for hearing on February 2. The court asked counsel for DVB, Jayant Nath, to arrange for a meeting between DVB Chairman Navin Chawla and the Union leaders for discussion on the latter’s demands. It may be recalled that DVB had assured the court that a decision would be taken on the hike in pay scales of the employees by April 15. The employee unions were restrained by the court not to hold any pen- or tool-down strike till then.

The committee, the court said, would go into various problems including irregular and inflated billing. Justice Singh said majority of the suggestions should come from the consumers. Shourie had in his petition pointed out mass theft of electricity going on in the Capital in collusion with certain DVB officials and under the protection of powerful local politicians.

He claimed that politicians were using the consumers residing in various JJ clusters as the vote bank and were preventing any action against them for power theft.

MCD clerk imprisoned for accepting bribe

Special Judge Dinesh Dayal on Tuesday sentenced an official of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to three-and-a-half years imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 3,500 on him for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 1,000 to renew a squatter license.

And if Ashok Kumar, a dealing clerk in the MCD, is unable to pay the fine he will have to undergo another seven months imprisonment, the Judge ordered. Ashok Kumar was nabbed for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 1,000 from Jagdish Prasad to renew his squatters license in 1987.

Kumar was charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) and also under the Indian Penal Code. Finding him guilty on both charges the Judge passed an order sentencing him to three years imprisonment under the PCA and two years under the IPC. Both the sentences will run concurrently, the Judge ordered.