In Brief 8212; Pune

Kulkarni scrapes through school board pollsSmita Sanjay Kulkarni of the Congress was today elected as the chairperson of the Pimpri Chinc...

Kulkarni scrapes through school board polls
Smita Sanjay Kulkarni of the Congress was today elected as the chairperson of the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation school board amidst allegation from the defeated candidate Amar Mulchandani that one of the vote was invalid. Kulkarni scraped through by a single vote as she secured seven of the total thirteen votes. Mulchandani however alleged that the election was invalid as one of the votes secured by Kulkarni was invalid because of a pencil mark on the ballot paper.

8220;The secrecy of the vote has been compromised. According to the rules under which the election is held, that particular vote bearing the distinct mark should be considered invalid.8221; Mulchandani said he had no option but to move the court against the entire election process. He said that as the number of votes secured by him and Kulkarni were equal, the winner should have been decided by draw of lots.

Manikrao Ahirrao who presided over the election meeting, however, turned down Mulchandani8217;s allegation and said that all the votes polled were valid. The thirteen-member school board has seven Congress members, five of the BJP-Shiv Sena and one member appointed by the Government.

Three get lifer for dowry murder
Additional Sessions Judge S S Phansalkar-Joshi has sentenced Nagesh Dharma Ghodke, 26, his father Dharma Ghodke, 50, and mother Rahi Bai, 45, to life imprisonment under section 302 of the IPC for the murder of Anita Ghodke. Prosecution said, Anita got married to Nagesh in February 1997, following which the boy and his parents started troubling her for dowry. Finally, Anita left her in-laws8217; house and went home to her parents. On January 24, 1998, Nagesh and his mother went to fetch the girl promising to improve their behaviour towards her.

On the same day, the three locked her in their house in Nadenagar, Kalewadi, and set her afire. She was brought to Sassoon Hospital where she gave a dying declaration before passing away two days later.

Advocate Dilip Dende, who appeared for the State, said the conviction was brought about on the statements of 10 eye witnesses and the dead woman8217;s dying declaration.