THE TIMES OF INDIA, NEW DELHITUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 20176 TIMES CITY

IMPACT

Leaning pole at Patparganj Industrial Area removed

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New Delhi: After TOI carried Citizen Reporter Suniel P’sphotograph of a leaning elec-tricity pole in front of plot num-ber 130, Patparganj Industrial Area, on January 27, the pole has now been removed. TNN

Recently, concrete barriers were placed in Gurgaon Sector 5 to divide the road, but one side ended up becoming narrower than the other. As a result, all four-wheelers use the wider side, creating a huge menace, specifically during office hours. Citizen Reporter Niket Singh

The wall of the Airport Express Metro station at New Delhi Railway Station is used as a public convenience by passers-by, which is simply shameful. Citizen Reporter Barinder Ranhotra

GREAT WALL OF PEE

SEWAGE WATER FLOODS PALAM FARMS

GURGAON: PATH LESS TRAVELLED

The New Year gift by MCD to Palam farms residents at Salahpur, Bijwasan, is sewage water flooding their homes and streets, making them not only inaccessible but also inhabitable; damaging property and creating highly unsanitary conditions. Over three weeks have passed with zero action. The problem is increasing daily as fresh sewage is added every day. The nuisance is due to several factors — an already-narrow pipeline clogged with plastic and other trash, manholes blocked with stones, wrong gradients of streets, absence of a waste disposal system and infrastructure, and negligent sanitation workers, to name a few. Who will take the responsibility is not clear. Citizen Reporter Anuradha Agrawal

New Delhi: The Supreme Co-urt slammed the Centre onMonday for not taking any de-cision to ban polluting fuelslike furnace oil and pet coke inthe NCR and directed it tochalk out a comprehensiveplan in a month in consultationwith governments of Delhi, Ut-tar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Ha-ryana to tackle air pollution inthe capital.

Pointing out that an estima-ted eight people die every dayin the capital due to pollution-related diseases, a bench of Jus-tices Madan B Lokur and Pra-fulla C Pant said the govern-ments should take immediatesteps to deal with the situation.

It asked the Centre to holdconsultations with the partiesconcerned to ban the pollutingfuels used by industries and ex-plore alternatives. The benchsaid sulphur content in furna-ce oil and pet coke is too high tobe allowed to be used as fuel.

As the pollution level in Del-hi has reached alarming levels,the Environment PollutionControl and Prevention Autho-rity (EPCA) has recommendedto the Supreme Court to banthe polluting fuels. Althoughthe Delhi Pollution ControlCommittee had declared thenunacceptable fuel in the capitalway back in 1996, they are notbanned outside Delhi bordersand are being increasinglyused by industries in the NCR,contributing to the pollution le-vels in the city.

Advocate Aprajita Singh,

who is assisting the court asamicus curiae, told the benchthat quality of fuel played a cri-tical role in quantum of pollu-tion generated and sulphur le-vel in furnace oil and pet cokewas multiple times higherthan in other acceptable fuels.

“Samples of pet coke usedin NCR contains sulphur levelbetween 69,000 ppm to 74,000ppm and the level of sulphur infurnace oil is between 15,000 to20,000 ppm. It is higher in com-parison to petrol/diesel with 50ppm,” she said.

The court asked SolicitorGeneral Ranjit Kumar to askthe Centre to take a call on ban-ning these fuels. It also sugges-ted that a comprehensive planshould be prepared to controlpollution level in the city as va-rious authorities were havingdifferent plans and there waslack of a holistic approach.

It asked EPCA, Central Pol-lution Control Board, the mini-stry of environment and fo-rests, Delhi and its neighbou-ring states to have a joint mee-

ting to chalk out an acceptablecomprehensive plan.

Pleading for blanket ban onpolluting fuels, EPCA in its re-commendation to SC said fur-nace oil, being the last gradeproduced by refineries is extremely polluting and pet coke, a by-product, is even mo-re polluting.

“There is no doubt that theuse of such high sulphur fuel isgreatly contributing to pollu-tion in the region ... The use offurnace oil and pet coke shouldbe strictly banned in NCR. Petcoke will be allowed only in cement plants, where combus-tion and emissions are control-led. However, if any cementplant requires the use of pet coke, it will have to seek per-mission from CPCB and EPCA,” it said.

EPCA said its investigationhad revealed that large quanti-ties of furnace oil are sold inDelhi and NCR by oil compani-es and the sale has gone up thisyear with 30,000 metric tonnesbeing sold every month.

Tells It To Make Comprehensive Plan For NCR

No ban on pollutingfuels, SC raps Centre

AmitAnand.Choudhary@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: The New DelhiMunicipal Council (NDMC)submitted two proposals to theNew Delhi Traders Associa-tion (NDTA) for pedestrianisa-tion of Connaught Place (CP),which were, however, rejectedby the traders.

NDTA also called for a shut-down of CP market till 3pm onTuesday.

The council had preparedthe proposals after seeking sug-gestions from all stakeholders.Chairman, NDMC, Naresh Ku-mar said that two possibilitieswere identified by the councilto take up the project for pedest-rianisation of CP market.

“In the first proposal, wesuggested allowing vehicles inthe middle circle and leave theinner circle free of vehicles.And in the second proposal, wesuggested making the entireCP market vehicle-free zone,”said Kumar.

“We are trying to bring allthe stakeholders on board. Ameeting will be called up withthe traders association this we-ek to discuss the plan,” he said.

Kumar also said, “We arestill working on deployment ofbattery vehicles and exploringother aspects to ensure imple-mentation of the project do notlead to any chaos. The pedestri-anisation of CP is likely to startfrom last week of February.”

However, rejecting the

NDMC proposals, NDTA presi-dent Atul Bhargava said, “Thecouncil had given us two alter-natives and we rejected both.They want to turn a commerci-al place like CP into a touristdestination.”

“Their proposals are weak,which will only cause problemsfor visitors and the traders willhave to face the heat of their ir-responsible decision. Already,during demonetisation we fa-ced a lot of issues. Not even asingle trader is in favour of thisdecision,” he added.

Bhargava added, “On Tues-day we have called a meetingwith all the traders and allshops will remain shut till 3pmas a sign of our silent protest.At the meeting, we will discussthe issue and prepare a propo-sal for pedestrianisation of CPmarket. We will also take up thematter with NDMC.”

Traders rejectNDMC plans todecongest CP

HITTING BACK: All shops willremain shut till 3pm on Tuesday

Mayank Manohar & Somreet Bhattacharya TNN

New Delhi:A teacher at a private school insoutheast Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh thrasheda 10-year-old boy, severely injuring him inthe left eye, as he had failed to complete hismaths homework. The teacher, Nasreen,has been expelled from the school. The pa-rents allege that the child may lose visionin his left eye permanently.

The child, Mudasir Shakeel, a studentof Class III, returned home last Tuesdaywith a security guard looking frightenedand disoriented. “He complained of severepain in his left eye after which we rushed toHoly Family Hospital. A surgery was car-ried out and doctors said that he might losehis vision permanently,” said the child’sfather Shakeel Ahmed, a cloth merchantnear Jamia Nagar.

Later, the parents went to the schooland sought an explanation from the princi-pal. “However, the principal refused to coo-perate and did not even extend financialhelp for Mudasir’s treatment. We then registered a case against Nasreen under IPC Section 323 (voluntarily cau-sing hurt) at Jamia Nagar police station,”said Ahmed.

The school principal, Parveen Ara, sa-id the teacher has been expelled as thechild’s injury was her fault. “The family is

exaggerating the case. When the incidentoccurred, we tried calling them multiple times, but they didn’t receive our call,”she said.

The boy’s family said that Mudasir al-ready had a weak left eye and had undergo-ne two surgeries in the past. In 2011, thechild had hurt his left eye while playing infront of an air cooler at home. This was fol-lowed by a cataract operation at AIIMS.

“The parents never told us about the me-dical condition of the boy. We were ready tohelp the family financially, but they didn’tapproach us and instead filed a police case.We were ready to foot the surgery bill thatwas about Rs 30,000,” Parveen said.

Thrashed by teacher,child may lose vision

IN DISTRESS: A 10-year-old Mudasir Shakeelwas beaten up by the teacher for not completing his maths homework

Piyal Bhattacharjee

Abhinav Mittra TNN

The Supreme Court hasasked two senior advo-cates to submit a report

within four weeks on the feasi-bility of installing CCTV cam-eras for recording court pro-ceedings. It asked the Gurgaondistrict judge to help the twolawyers make an on-the-spotstudy. The move is path-break-ing, as the apex court had tillnow refused proposals for in-stallation of cameras insidecourt rooms to record judicialproceedings in the three-tierjustice dispensation system.

The decision came about inan innocuous matrimonial casewhere the husband had pet-itioned the apex court seeking adirection for “audio-video re-cording of proceedings by thetrial court to ensure fair trial tothe petitioner, may be at the costof the petitioner”.

Justices Goel and Lalit re-called that the Centre had writ-ten to the SC in the past for video

recording of court proceedingsand also that the Law Commis-sion had made a similar recom-mendation. The bench said itwanted to consider issuing di-rections for installation ofCCTV cameras initially in onecourt in each state and take thematter forward on the basis ofthe result of this experiment.

ASG Singh said the minis-try of law and justice was yet tofile its response and it would beappropriate if the SC examinedthe issue after the ministry filedits affidavit. The bench agreedand sought a report on the Gur-gaon court in four weeks andposted the matter for furtherhearing on March 21.

In March 2016, an online sur-vey found that 97% of citizenswanted video recording ofcourt hearings and were evenwilling to pay for recording oftheir cases. LocalCircles, a citi-zen engagement platform, con-ducted the survey, evoking re-sponses from 13,000 persons —75% male and 25% female.“Over 80% of participants saidthey were willing to pay a re-trieval fee for that video if it wasa paid service,” LocalCirclesfounder Sachin Taparia hadtold TOI.

File report on CCTVs incourt in fourweeks: SC

� Continued from P1

RECORDING CASES

The Janakpuri-Noida ‘Ma-genta Line’ of the DelhiMetro will be ready bySeptember, while a seg-ment of the ‘Pink Line’ isalso likely to open then.

DU forms panel formore autonomy: Afterthe Centre announcementon provisions for moreautonomy, , Delhi Universityhas formed a committeethat are seeking autonomyor university status.

Delhi-bound plane hitsbird, lands in Jaipur: ADelhi-bound Air India flightwith 122 passengers fromBhopal was diverted toJaipur on Monday as it hit abird, soon after take-off.

Court asks for report ingraft case : A court onMonday directed EOW tofile an action taken reporton February 9 on a com-plaint against CM ArvindKejriwal and others overalleged irregularities ingrant of contracts for roadsand sewer lines.

Fire at clothes factoryin Mundka: A fire brokeout at a clothes factory inMundka area on Monday.Twenty-nine fire tenderswere rushed to the spot.Officials said no one wasinjured but the factorysuffered heavy loses.

350 jhuggi families getflats: Around 350 familiesliving in Patparganj’s NehruCamp JJ Colony wereallotted flats in Dwarka onMonday.

CITY DIGEST

Magenta Lineto open in Sept

According to a seniorgovernment official,although two inspec-

tions of the school were un-dertaken by the govern-ment, “it was just the infras-tructure that was looked in-to. However, last month afterstudying the original docu-ments of the land and recog-nition of SAES, it came tolight that there has been a se-rious misrepresentation offacts at the Delhi high courtby DoE via an affidavit filedon June 29, 2016. A case wasfiled by parents of studentsafter the school was shiftedfrom its building on 9.84acres, from where it has beenfunctioning since December1988, to another building inAurobindo Ashram in April 2015.”

The DoE filed its affidaviton June 29, 2016. Accordingto the order signed by deputychief minister Manish Siso-dia, after “carefully perus-ing the files related to this

case it seems apparent thatthe inspection report and theaffidavit filed by the DoE inthe court are a deliberatemisrepresentation of facts.It is, therefore, necessary to take strong action on this count”.

Apart from physical in-spection and document in-spection, the minister or-dered withdrawing of the af-fidavit and filing a new oneby February 8. Sisodia alsoordered immediate actionon the complaints by parents“if they are found true.”

DoE’s affidavit hadstated that “the school got itsrecognition in the year 1988,when it was functioningfrom the present premises”,whereas Mirambika wasgranted recognition by DoEin January 1989 after it hadshifted to its new building in1988. The affidavit also men-tioned that the school wasfunctioning from the Auro-bindo Ashram building forwhich the recognition wasgranted in 1998 and that the

school was shifted to the newbuilding on 9.84 acres whenthe society applied for up-gradation of the school toClass X, which was grantedin 1993.

However DoE’s own in-spection report of 1988 statedthat the school was runningfrom its own building andthat it had a lease deed of theland allotted by DDA. An ear-lier (August 1988) inspec-tion’s checklist by the direc-torate also stated that the“school is currently runningin Aurobindo Ashram but islikely to be shifted to its ownbuilding by October 1988”and that “the society doesnot require funds to pur-chase land for the school as italready has land from DDA.”

On April 14, 2015, the chil-dren were shifted out of theschool’s campus near LajpatNagar, allegedly withoutany prior notice or explana-tion, and relocated to thepremises of the neighboringresidential Sri AurobindoAshram.

Sisodia asks DoE to file new affidavit in 2 daysMarch 1984: DDA allots a 9.84-acre plot to Sri Aurobindo Education Society (SAES)

Aug: SAES informs DDA there was no proposal to set up any traditional college on the allotted land & submits an affidavit indicating that the proposed use for the land was for ‘Mirambika Research Centre for Integral Education and Human Values’

Nov: A perpetual lease deed for 5 acres of land for college building and a temporary lease of 4.84 acres of land for playground registered

July 1985: SAES applies for grant of recognition enclosing the site map of temporary Mirambika on the Ashram premises & Mirambika building plan in the 9.84-acre plot

Aug 1988: DoE states that the school is running from Aurobindo Ashram complex

and is likely to be shifted to its own building by October 1988. The society doesn’t require funds for land as it is already has land from DDA

Dec 10: School shifts to new building on a 9.84-acre plot

Dec 12: DoE inspects the premises for recognition till Class VIII

Jan 1989: Mirambika granted recognition by DoE

Sept 1992: Recognition granted till Class X

Apr 2015: Mirambika shifted to a makeshift location within the Aurobindo Ashram campus

July: The school shifted from a temporary residential complex to a building within the ashram

July 2016: Government informs Delhi HC that DoE misrepresented facts

Feb 6, 2017: Delhi govt orders suspension of a senior DoE official and withdraws the old affidavit

FACT OR FICTION? STORY SO FAR File Photo

� Continued from P1

New Delhi: AAP governmenton Monday said in Delhi highcourt that the bureaucrats whoallegedly went on mass leave toprotest against its decision tosuspend two of its DANICS cad-re officers in December 2015,had availed casual leave in theirindividual capacity.

The submission was madebefore a bench of Chief JusticeG Rohini and Justice SangitaDhingra Sehgal, which was he-aring a plea seeking action aga-inst bureaucrats who were onleave on December 29, 2015.

“The records do not conclu-de that IAS and DANICS offi-cers has resorted to any illegalaction by way of availing casualleave. It is quite natural thatthey either take casual or ear-ned leave during the year endsubject to the availability of ade-quate credit of leave and it wasnothing unusual.

On December 31, 2015, 200DANICS officers had gone onmass leave after two senior civilservice officers of the govern-ment’s home department weresuspended for refusing to signon a cabinet decision file. PTI

Officers tookcasual leave,AAP tells HC

New Delhi: The Central Boardof Secondary Education willbegin its telecounselling ses-sions from February 9 to April29. This year, 90 principals, trai-ned counsellors, psychologistsand special educators will be av-ailable on its helplines.

The counselling is offered asan annual outreach program-me to help students appearingfor Class X and XII exams mana-ge their stress and addressother issues. The assistancewill be provided by 68 personnelfrom within various schools inIndia and 22 from schools loca-ted in Nepal, Japan, Kingdom ofSaudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait,Singapore and Qatar.

Students can dial the helpli-ne’s tollfree number from anypart of the country, between8am and 10pm on all days fromFebruary 9 and April 29. Gene-ral queries will be address byoperators, and exam-relatedones will be addressed by prin-cipals or counsellors. TNN

Counsellingfor CBSE to

start on Feb 9