Bar council opposes education Bill

Advocates of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to go on strike on Jan 20

Chandigarh, January 12
Terming the Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011, as “undemocratic” and “motivated” to regulate the legal education sector in the county, the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana today opposed the bill.

Now on the call given by the Bar Council of India (BCI), advocates of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh would go on strike on January 20.

Lekh Raj Sharma, chairman, Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana, said with this Bill, the Union government had tried to take away the powers of the BCI to regulate the legal education sector of the country.

He added that the Union government was in so hurry for the bill that the new bill was approved without any consultation with the members of Bar.

An emergency meeting has also been called on January 15 in Chandigarh, he added.

Amrik Singh Kalra, secretary of Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana, said as per the Advocates Act, 1961, lawyers want to be independent of the government control but the Centre is trying to take control over the advocates and legal education.

He added that the Bar council can smell the hidden agenda of the government in bringing this Bill. With this Bill, the government is planning to allow foreign nationals to practice as advocates in India. The Bar council would also oppose any kind of the hindrance in the smooth functioning of the bodies established under the Advocates Act, 1961, he added.

Despite complaints, real estate still attracts overseas Punjabis

Chandigarh, January 11

For majority of overseas Punjabis, who had come to Jaipur to participate in the 2012 Parvasi Bharati Divas conclave, their interest in real estate continues unabated. Despite complaints of land grab, they feel that "safest bet for good returns is real estate."

Paul Pornthep SriNarula, a real estate entrepreuner, lecturer and author from Thailand, says that though investments in some parts of India, including Punjab, run more than normal risks, still he was venturing into real estate.

"Real estate in India is growing rapidly while in Thialand after a boom couple of decades ago it has stabilised now. India offers tremendous opportunities. When I go around streets in Karoo Bazar I find women buying sarees of Rs 20,000 or Rs 30,000 each. Jewellery shops overflow with buyers. People in India have money. Some 30 years ago, we thought that we in Thailand were the rich. But now things have reversed. It is India which has money," says Paul Pornthep SriNarula, who also owns a five star Serviced Apartments Tower.

Since he has attended all 10 editions of the Parvasi Bharati Divas, he feels this "flagship event" has started losing its value. "Something new and innovative has to be introduced to keep it vibrant and happening event for the overseas Indians," he suggests.

While PaulPornthep SriNarula is interested in real estate investments in India, Kamal Singh, a Vancouver-based realtor, has innovated a new concept in real estate. "We are providing service to those overseas Punjabis who are in distress as they apprehend that they may lose their landed properties back home. We help them dispose off their properties in India," says Kamal Singh, who has already set up offices of Remax, his real estate company in Canada. His company is setting up offices in other parts of the country as well. "We are getting good response and trying to secure landed properties of overseas Indians by getting them the market value," he adds.

Tarun Khatri, who is doing a similar thing in Rajasthan, is also associated with Remax Canada and providing specialised services to overseas Indians.

Prabal Arora, who is now settled in Fiji after a stint in Australia, also thinks that real estate offers maximum investment opportunities in India. While real estate is stable both in Australia and Fiji, it is looking up in India in a big way. "Indian real estate market is booming, he says holding that problems like red-tapism, corruption and land grabbing are some risks that would be gradually resolved," he said.

Arvind Sood, another real estate agent from North America, says that bureaucratic wrangling, corruption and red-tapism are prevalent in all developing democracies, but in India the growth potential is so much that it dwarfs the problems. "I am convinced that if one has to make good returns, he/she can invest in real estate," adds Sood.

I don’t need a visa to visit India, claims Rushdie

Chandigarh, January 10
In the poll season, even a Booker of Bookers award winning author can be used as fodder for political gains. Or, at least an attempt can be made to do so.

It is a different matter that most of those demanding cancellation of Salman Rushdie’s visa for his India visit to participate in the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) may have never read ‘ The Satanic Verses’, the book that has been the cause of over two-decade long controversy, re-ignited this time for a myopic political game.

In 1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini, an Iranian leader, had issued a fatwa ( death sentence) on Rushdie over his controversial book ‘The Satanic Verses’, it was told, even he had not read the book. The fatwa was withdrawn by the government of Iran in 1998, which should have made the issue a forgotten history.

But, in the obscure political landscape of UP, where 17 per cent Muslims form a big vote bank, Deoband chief, Maulana Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani’s demand that Rushdie should be denied visa, received an apt response from the author, who never disappoints his detractors. The writer tweeted, “my Indian visit, for the record, I don’t need a visa.”

The Deoband chief said he had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to cancel Rushdie’s visa, adding a threat, “In case of no response from the UPA government, the Darul-Uloom Deoband will take appropriate action.” Whatever the appropriate action may be, the producer of JLF, Sanjoy Roy, remained unfazed. He said, “Salman Rushdie has attended several literary events and forums in India in recent years. The JLF provides a space for free speech in India's best democratic traditions, we are a plural society, and it is imperative that we continue to allow avenues for unfettered literary expression.”

Sanjoy has reasons to be confident. He has witnessed the popularity Rushdie enjoys across lines. If only the protesters knew, the same Rushdie had kept his audience glued over couple of hours in the open lawns of Diggi Palace in 2007, where the JLF is organised every year.

Though the protests are also a sad reminder of the fate of Harud, the first ever literature festival planned for Kashmir Valley in September 2011, which had to be cancelled because rumours were spread that Rushdie was going to be a guest.

Rushdie is scheduled to address a literary session, “Midnight`s Children” named after his landmark Man Booker Prize winning 1981 novel, anchored by noted writer Hari Kunzru on Jan 21, he will also participate in a group discussion, “Inglish, Amlish, Hinglish: The Chutneyfication of English”, featuring Rita Kothari, Tarun Tejpal and Ira Pande on Jan 23 at Diggi Palace, Jaipur. 

The recent row

* Deoband chief Maulana Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani on Monday demanded that controversial author Salman Rushdie should be denied visa to visit India for the Jaipur litfest

* The Deoband chief said he had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to cancel Rushdie's visa. He had warned that in case of no response from the UPA government, the Darul-Uloom Deoband will take appropriate action

Govt unlikely to stop Salman

NEW DELHI: Controversial author Salman Rushdie is unlikely to be stopped by the government from travelling to India as he holds a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card that entitles him to visit the country without visa. "He had travelled to India in the past using PIO card. We have never stopped him. We have no intention to stop any PIO card holder to travel to his or her home country in future either," a source said. 

Medicine Hat triple murderer Jeremy Steinke filing appeal of 2008 conviction

Says guilty verdict is “unreasonable”

Three years after being convicted of slaughtering his underage girlfriend’s parents and eight-year-old brother, a Medicine Hat man says his guilty verdict is “unreasonable.”

Jeremy Allan Steinke is hoping for a new murder trial after filing an appeal of his 2008 conviction.

“It was an unreasonable verdict, I didn’t appeal sooner because I’m new to the system and did not know what I was doing, and at the time I could not find a lawyer who would take my case,” wrote Steinke, who was defended at his trial by high-profile criminal defence lawyer Alain Hepner through legal aid.

“Once my appeal is approved, I will contact legal aid so that they may cover the cost of the lawyer as I cannot afford one.”

Steinke, soon to be 29, is serving a life sentence in Edmonton Institution with no chance of parole for 25 years on three counts of first-degree murder in the April 23, 2006 stabbings.

The shocking case made headlines and history -- Steinke’s accomplice was his 12-year-old girlfriend, whose conviction made her Canada’s youngest multiple killer.

Steinke and the girl had been carrying on their illicit romance for only a few months before her parents learned of it and tried to stop it.

The murder plan was hatched online and through phone calls. Through online messages under their user names “souleater” and “runaway devil,” the pair discussed killing the girl’s parents, who opposed the relationship between their 12-year-old daughter and Steinke, who was 23.

The girl, who cannot be named, was also convicted of three counts of first-degree murder.

She is now 18 and is now entering the final phase of a special rehabilitative youth sentence, which is gradual reintegration to society.

When she is 22, she will be free.

She was given the maximum youth sentence of 10 years which includes a four-phase program of stabilization, intensive therapy and transition.

Steinke admitted stabbing the girl’s parents to death, but not the boy. The girl denied any role in the killings.

Steinke, who was sentenced in December 2008, filed an appeal of his judge and jury conviction Jan. 17, 2011.

Normally, appeals are to be filed within 30 days of the court’s decision.

Steinke’s request will be heard by the Alberta Court of Appeal May 15. If his appeal is granted, he has requested to attend the hearing in person. If a new trial is ordered, he is asking to be tried by judge alone.

On the night of the killings, court heard the girl phoned Steinke, who arrived at the family’s darkened house, high on cocaine and drunk.

Both parents confronted Steinke, who was armed with knives. They bled to death in the basement.

Steinke said he never touched the boy upstairs but watched as the girl slit her brother’s throat.

Hours after the killings, the couple was seen kissing and giggling at a house party.

They were arrested with friends the next morning in Leader, Sask.

Steinke told an undercover police officer he tried to talk his girlfriend out of the deadly plan but she wouldn’t have it, and he was a man of his word.

In the days following their arrest, the couple agreed to marry through prison love letters, but the relationship quickly crumbled when they blamed each other for the boy’s stabbing death.

CBI files detailed chargesheet against former revenue official and a sarpanch

Chandigarh, January 9
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today filed a detailed charge sheet at a district court here against former Punjab revenue official and a sarpanch of Fatehgarh Sahib in a graft case dating back to April, 2011.

The CBI filed the charge sheet against the duo for accepting a bribe of Rs 9 lakh. The accused were revenue official Narinder Singh and Panjol sarpanch Darbara Singh. The court deferred the hearing for January 21.

Past year, the CBI had laid a trap at Sector 43 and arrested the accused. According to it, they had demanded the bribe for executing a sale deed in favour of the complainant, a resident of Fatehgarh Sahib, who had purchased agricultural land at Panjol village. CBI officials maintained that the revenue official had threatened the complainant that in case of non-payment, an objection would be raised to the tehsildar concerned and the sale deed would not be executed.

Merchant Navy Officer Academy fined Rs 50,000

Chandigarh, January 9
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-I slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 on the Swami Vivekanand University of Merchant Navy (now Merchant Navy Officer Academy) for its failure to provide onboard deck training to a resident of Mohali.

The district forum comprising president PD Goel and members Rajinder Singh Gill and Madanjit Kaur Sahota also directed the opposite party to refund Rs 3,15,000, besides Rs 10,000 as the cost of litigation.

The complainant, Arvind Kaur, submitted that after being allured by the advertisement regarding the deck cadet course (pre-sea training) by the opposite party, she approached them for getting her son, Mohit Arora admitted in the said course, culminating into the licence for continue discharge certificate, upon which placement of the candidate would be made on the ship.

She was to deposit Rs 3,15,000, out of which Rs 1,55,000 was for the pre-sea training and an amount of Rs 1,60,000 was to be deposited before the start of the course. She deposited Rs 1,55,000 and her son was issued various certificates regarding the training and the onboard training was to commence from November 4, 2009, but the same was not started. She approached the opposite party through her husband who asked her son to deposit the remaining fee of Rs 1,60,000.

She further alleged that her son was taken to Bangkok (Thailand) on March 12, 2010 on the assurance that the continue discharge certificate would be issued there. Before departing, a sum of Rs 1.60 lakh was also taken by the opposite party and her son was issued certificate to work onboard of Panamanian Ship for a period of three months and thereafter, received a letter through the opposite party from one Hailong Shipping and Investment Development Vietnam for the onboard training, starting from May 3, 2010.

According to the complainant, many commitments were made regarding the continue discharge certificate and licence to board, but no development took place and her son has to stay at Bangkok. Thereafter, he was taken to Cambodia where her son had to stay for one month and returned back on expiry of his visa.

According to the complainant, the certificates issued by the opposite party were fake and had no recognition for imparting the said training, besides having no authority to issue the said certificates. She requested the opposite party to refund Rs 3,15,000 deposited with them, but to no effect.

The counsel for the opposite party pleaded that on completion of the pre-sea training course, requisite certificates were issued to the candidate. Thereafter, they provided certificate to the candidate for joining the “onboard training”, without any delay. It has been pleaded that the complainant has failed to deposit Rs 1,60,000 for the onboard training of the candidate and only Rs 1,47,200 was paid on March 15, 2010, that, too, after the completion of the training and issuance of the transitory certificate in February, 2010.

It has further been pleaded that the complainant’s son returned to India without consulting the opposite party and failed to reach the company’s office by the stipulated date i.e. May 12, 2010. They further asserted that the institute of the opposite party is duly recognised and the certificates issued by them are genuine.

Pafex told to pay Rs 5,000 by Consumer Court

Chandigarh, January 9

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum-I slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 on Pafex (Prakash Air Freight Private Limted) for its failure to deliver a parcel.

The district forum comprising president PD Goel and members Rajinder Singh Gill and Madanjit Kaur Sahota has also directed the respondents to pay Rs 2,195 on account of the loss suffered by the complainant.

The complainant, Dilpreet Singh, submitted that he approached Brijesh Sareen, Shiv Shakti Stationery and Couriers at Panjab University (Opposite party no 2) for sending a parcel containing some clothes and shoes to his cousin at Jhansi. He showed his parcel to the opposite party no.2, who asked him to pack it properly, which he did accordingly and gave it to the opposite party No.2. He said after three days, he received the packet and found that one pair of shoes, costing Rs 2,195, was missing from the packet. His cousin went to the office of opposite party No.1 at Jhansi, but it told him to contact their Chandigarh office, from the where the courier was booked. When he approached the opposite party no.2 and asked him about the parcel, he replied that it was done in a hurry. He made irrelevant excuses and asked the complainant to talk to branch manager of the opposite party No.1 in Chandigarh. It is averred that he called the branch manager, who told him to meet the opposite party No.2 who offered only Rs 500 as compensation.

The counsel for the opposite party No.1 pleaded that the transaction in question is without any declaration of goods in respect of the goods claim, hence the complainant cannot be allowed to take advantage of his own wrong. It is further pleaded that courier had been duly delivered and no item of the couriered goods of the complainant had been lost. At the time of taking delivery of the impugned shipment, the consignee pointed out no irregularities and admittedly the delivery slip was signed in token of receipt and acceptance of the shipment in good order. Furthermore, as per the terms and conditions of the consignment note, the liability of the opposite party No.1, if any, is limited to Rs 100 only.

Initially, the opposite party no 2 appeared in person and sought time to file reply/evidence but subsequently, did not appear and suffered ex-parte.

The forum observed that the non-appearance of opposite party no.2 as well as non-filing of reply, despite appearing on three dates of hearing and then suffering ex-parte order, shows that opposite party no.2 did not want to say anything in its defense or to contest the claim of the complainant and the allegations made by the complainant are true.