M A I N   N E W S

HC rejects Scheduled Castes staff pleas
From Our Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, Jan 16 — A Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court comprising Mr Justice Amarbir Singh Gill and Mr Justice V.S.Aggarwal today dismissed two writ petitions filed by the Scheduled Caste and Backward Class employees of Haryana challenging their demotions by the Chief Secretary.

Pronouncing the order in the open court the Bench observed: “Regarding the present controversy, the Supreme Court had clarified and held that in accordance with the decision in the Ajit Singh Janjua II case, the seniority list had to be drawn up to the level where reservation is permitted. After reviewing the seniority list and relaxing the same at that level, promotion to the level of Superintending Engineer has to be reviewed.”

“That is exactly what has been done in the present controversy . The seniority list of general category candidates has been restored in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court in Ajit Singh-II and R.K. Sabharwal cases and they are being promoted from the effective dates. As a necessary consequence, unfortunately, some of the reserved candidates have to be reverted”, the Bench observed.

“For these reasons, we are of the opinion that there is no merit in both writ petitions and these are accordingly dismissed,” it ruled.

Mr Sadhu Singh and Sammat Singh and others were the two petitioners who had challenged their demotions from the post of Under-Secretaries by making the Chief Secretary and 78 others (some of them retirees) as respondents in the case.

According to the petitioners, they were senior to all respondents except respondent (No. 2 to 10) who had become senior by virtue of the rule.

“The seniority list otherwise so prepared is stated to be contrary to the judgement of the Supreme Court. The grievance of the petitioner is that the seniority list prepared on May 17 last year that has been finalised by the Haryana government giving seniority to all respondents that respondents No. 2 to 28 had not reached the level of Deputy Superintendent when the petitioners were promoted Superintendents and thereafter as Under-Secretaries.

The petitioners also contended that on October 6 last year they were reverted to the post of Superintendent on the basis of Supreme Court judgement.

Jitendra Prasada dead
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Jan 16 — Senior Congress leader Jitendra Prasada, 62, who recently came into public gaze by becoming the first person to challenge a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family for the party’s presidential race, died here today at Apollo Hospital following a cardiac arrest.

Mr Prasada, who went into deep coma after suffering a brain haemorrhage on January 8, did not recover from it and was on ventilatory support all through his stay at the hospital.

His family members were by his side when the end came at 12.15 p.m. Prasada, a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter.

An agriculture graduate, Mr Prasada rose high in the party because of his organisational abilities. He mostly remained behind the scenes except for the challenge he posed to Congress President Sonia Gandhi during the party’s elections.

Mr Prasada served as Political Secretary to Mr Rajiv Gandhi and Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao when they were party Presidents.

Hailing from Shahjahanpur, he was a member of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council during 1970-71 and became a Lok Sabha member for the first time in 1971.

Paying his tributes to Mr Prasada, President K.R. Narayanan said the country had lost a staunch patriot and a seasoned legislator.

A meeting of the CWC was held today under the presidentship of Ms Gandhi to pay homage to him.

LUCKNOW (UNI): The last rites of Mr Prasada will be performed at his native place and parliamentary constituency Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh on January 18.