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Over 5,000 people visit Delhi High Court every day

New Delhi,  The Delhi High Court complex, which was rocked by a powerful bomb explosion Wednesday claiming 11 lives, is spread over an area of around 4.57 acres and over 5,000 people visit it every day.

The court complex, which houses 700 lawyer chambers, sees 3,500 lawyers visiting it on normal days. However, the number increases every Wednesday, it being a PIL (public interest litigation) day.

There are over 40 courts, including High Court judges’ courts and joint registrars’ courts. Besides, the complex has around 10 mediation cells which deal with resolving disputes outside court processes.
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Students Fake Marksheets, 1,135 students got Jobs in Maharashtra, CBI report

AMRAVATI: An overall total of 1,135 students have secured jobs submitting fake marksheets after passing out from various universities in Maharashtra, As reported through the Times Of India.

The fake marksheet scam came to fore after an investigation through the CBI on the direction from the Bombay High Court on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in 2007.

The PIL had alleged that many of the employees working in government and private sectors had got the job after submitting bogus documents, and sought a probe.

After hearing the PIL, the High Court directed the CBI to investigate the matter. The CBI, on December 26, 2009, wrote to all the Universities in Maharashtra asking for verification of the marksheets.

Verification revealed that 1,135 students from six universities had landed jobs using fake marksheets (obtained between 2001 and 2007), police sources said, quoting the CBI report.

The maximum 729 cases of fake marksheets were identified at Pune University, followed by Mumbai (237), Rashtrasant Tukdoji Maharaj University, Nagpur (92), Shivaji University, Kolhapur (42), Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar University, Aurangabad (18) and Sant Gadgebaba University, Amravati (17).

The CBI will now be submitting the report to the High Court and could seek direction to consider action against these students, the sources said.

Supreme Court Rejects PIL of Telangana MLAs

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking direction to the Andhra Pradesh Speaker to either accept or choose the resignation of over 139 legislators on the Telangana issue. As stated by NDTV

A bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices J M Panchal and Deepak Verma said that the petitioner M Narayana Reddy, a former MP, had no locus standi in the issue.

The apex court said there was no public interest involved with the issue as claimed by the petitioner. “Who are you? It is very strange. You are not an MLA or MP. What are you? What’s the PIL? Who gave you the right to present petition,” the bench grilled Reddy while dismissing the PIL.

The 139 MLAs, cutting across party lines, are named as petitioners in the matter. They had submitted their resignation to the Assembly Speaker on December 10 and 23 last year. Andhra Pradesh Assembly has 284 members.

HC upset, Haryana govt fails to file reply in Ruchika case

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday expressed its displeasure as the Haryana government failed to file its reply in time in connection with a public suit filed by a human rights activist in the molestation case of teenager Ruchika Girhotra. As reported by The Times Of India.

In the public interest litigation (PIL) filed Dec 29, Ranjan Lakhanpal, who is also a senior lawyer, had sought that former Haryana police chief S.P.S. Rathore be charged under Section 305 (abetment of suicide of a minor) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) since he allegedly drove teenager Ruchika to suicide in 1993.

Rathore was convicted Dec 21 by a CBI special court here for molesting budding tennis player Ruchika Aug 12, 1990, in Haryana’s Panchkula town, 10 km from here. He was awarded a six-month jail term but he was immediately granted bail.

During the last hearing Jan 7, the court had issued notices to the Haryana government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and told them to submit their reply on Lakhanpal’s petition in 10 days.

However, the Haryana government’s lawyer sought two months’ time from the court Wednesday to submit their reply.

On this, the high court bench consisting of Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Jasbir Singh pulled up the state government and expressed displeasure.

The matter will be heard by the high court Feb 4.

The CBI filed its reply in connection with this PIL.

“In our reply we have given a detailed account of the CBI’s investigation so far. Like we said, the CBI registered the case in 2000 and then we also mentioned about the court’s proceedings and our probe in our reply,” Ajay Kaushik, said the CBI’s lawyer.

Abha Rathore, counsel and wife of the former Haryana police chief, also filed an application in the same court Wednesday, appealing to settle this PIL before Feb 8 as the hearing challenging Rathore’s six-month punishment is scheduled in a local court here on the same day.

New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) Terming strikes by doctors as illegal and against the public interest, the Delhi High Court Wednesday issued directives to both the central and Delhi governments to take action against medicos striking work.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice M.K. Sarma said that going by earlier orders, strikes by doctors in both the central and state government hospitals in the capital were illegal.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday banned strikes in all government hospitals in the national capital, saying that they were against the interest of the public.

They felt that such an order would stop the health professionals from going on strike unmindful of the needs of poor patients using public hospitals.

Advocate Sugriv Dubey had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) asking authorities to ban strikes in hospitals.

Doctors of many government hospitals had resorted to strikes and inconvenienced patients in past few months, the petition said.

The junior doctors of the Safdarjung Hospital had struck work last month and also early this month to protest the “misbehaviour” of a patient’s relatives with one of the physicians.

There had also been reports of emergency services being halted in a strike by doctors at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) hospital after incensed relatives of a patient allegedly manhandled some doctors.

The resident doctors of the premier All India Institute of medical Science (AIIMS) had struck work over the delay in the signing of their degrees, which were distributed later.

New Delhi, Aug 8 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Wednesday summoned Delhi’s principal health secretary and the medical superintendent of the government-run Guru Tegh Bahadur (GTB) Hospital to explain why its order on improving patient care was not implemented.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice M.K. Sarma asked the top officials to appear in person before it on the next date of hearing Sep 10 as the authorities had failed to execute the order to improve the condition of the hospital and provide better treatment to the patients.

The court-appointed commissioners – Rajiv Bansal and Varun Goswami – complained to the court that the authorities were not cooperating with them when they visited the hospital for inspection.

Despite repeated requests, the hospital authorities did not provide them with identity cards for facilitating their visit to wards and theatres, they said.

Advocate Varun Goswami had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking direction to the hospital for improving its condition as more than 500 newborn babies had died in the ‘out-born nursery’ there due to the lack of proper facilities for treatment few years back.

The petitioner alleged that newborn babies were treated in a “grossly neglected and unattended” manner in the nursery as it did not have proper and separate staff and the equipment installed there were obsolete.

Referring to the sole ventilator used for treatment of newborn babies, the petitioner said that it was procured more than two decades ago in 1987 and at present it did not display vital signs like the heart beat rate or pulmonary functions.

Most of the time, it showed error and was dysfunctional, Goswami stated.

Quoting some doctors of the hospital, he alleged that babies admitted to the nursery seldom survived when put on the ventilator, and about 500 babies had so far died due to the faulty medical equipment.

The hospital authorities had spent huge amounts of money on irrelevant activities but had not bothered to procure new ventilators, he alleged.

Also, the hospital had only two phototherapy machines to treat neonatal jaundice and sometimes as many as three babies were placed together in each machine exposing them to an increased and fatal risk of infection, the petitioner said.