Jharkhand: HC stays order in land-grab case

Two years after the former auditor of the Comptroller and Accountant General of India (CAG), D N Lal, moved the Jharkhand High Court seeking direction to the state government to invoke the law against land grabbers, the division bench, comprising Chief Justice Nelavoy Dhinakar and Justice S J Mukhopadhaya, on Sunday reserved its verdict on the petition.

According to the petition, a group of retired CAG employees headed by former auditor Kapil Deo Giri indulged in ‘‘mismanagement and financial irregularities’’ in the affairs of the Ranchi-based AG Office Employees’ Cooperative Housing Construction Society Ltd). Fed up with the state government’s inaction, Lal and nine others filed the petition in 2004. The court on May 18, 2004 ordered its ex-judge Vikramaditya Prasad to conduct an inquiry.

Prasad, in his inquiry report submitted in the court last month, concluded that the petitioner’s allegations were not far fetched and that no government functionary deemed it fit to book the culprits. ‘‘The administration was blind because the higher officers were the beneficiary,’’ the report said.

Talks to buy herbs

Bhopal: Baba Ramdev’s Divya Yoga Trust is in talks with the MPSMFP to purchase herbs from Madhya Pradesh. Acharya Balkrishna Maharaj, who was in Bhopal recently, said that about 125 of the 150 herbs used by his trust to make medicines at the Hardwar plant are found in the state. He said the trust was interested in buying as much as 150 tonnes of herbs from MP. A federation official said the talks were at a very preliminary stage. —ENS