Counselling for paid engg seats stalled

chandigarh: the division bench of the punjab and haryana high court comprising justices amarbir singh gill and swatanter kumar on wednesday directed different engineering colleges and institutes in haryana not to undertake any counselling for the paid seats for bachelor of engineering. the bench also issued notice to haryana technical education secretary, director technical education, all india council of technical education (aicte) besides over 20 engineering colleges and institutes for december 20.the orders were issued on a writ petition filed by sandeep khurana of ambala cantonment and others seeking directions to fill up the vacant seats in b.e second year third semester under lateral entry scheme as per merit of the entrance test.---- retired mc employees the punjab and haryana high court on wednesday admitted the writ petition filed by the retired haryana municipal employees' sangh through its president jia lal of ladwa district, kurukshetra, seeking payment of revised pay and pension benefits and arrears in line with the similar provision for retired state government employees. the division bench of justices k s kumaran and j s khehar ordered this after hearing the arguments of the counsel for the petitioner who sought quashing of the order of january 7, 2000, issued by the haryana government as it restricted the benefit of revised payscale with effect from april 1, 1999, and denied benefit of arrears from january 1, 1996 to march 31, 1999, and other consequential benefits. the petitioners said the order was arbitrary, illegal, discriminatory and unconstitutional. the petitioners have also sought directions to grant revised payscales and pensionary benefits to those who retired from the municipal committees of haryana with effect from or after january 1, 1996, in ac cordance with provisions of haryana civil service (revised pay) rules, 1998, and revised pensionary benefits and arrears as had been given to the haryana government employees and the employees workin g in the boards, corporations and uni versities of haryana. the petitioners are all retired class three employees who were in service on january 1, 1996, and retired after this date. ---- transfer stayed the division bench comprising justices amarbir singh gill and swatanter kumar on wednesday stayed the order of transfer of subdivisional officer (canals-muktsar to bathinda) raj kumar jangra, if he already had not handed over the charge in terms of orders of november 6, 2001. in his writ petition filed under article 226 of the constitution, he had prayed for setting aside the transfer order. the petitioner also submitted that he had subjected to frequent transfers because he is not in a position to approach political persons and was unable to influence higher authorities. the bench issued notice to punjab government for december 20 when the case would come up for hearing. ---- reference to bar the matter of alleged misinformation to the court by two advocates practising at the punjab and haryana high court was on wednesday referred to the chairman, bar council, by the division bench of justices h s bedi and a s garg, with the direction to take such action as he deems fit in the face of the facts and circumstances of the case. the bench also ordered that the bar council be supplied a complete photocopy of the petition in question. and the original record be kept in a sealed cover with the registrar of the high court. ---- paddy procurement the division bench comprising justices g s.singhvi and m.m.kumar on wednesday issued notice to the state of punjab and others for november 27 in connection with the alleged deduction of rs 25 per quintal by the commission agents on the paddy procured by the food corporation of india (fci) and other state agencies, from the payment made to the farmers as had been referred in some media report. justice mehtab singh gill had taken the notice of the news report which came to be listed before the bench on wednesday. ---- name badges the issue of some police personnel not wearing the badges carrying their names in violation of the directions of the apex court, came up for consideration before the division bench comprising justices g s singhvi and m m kumar who issued notices to the states of haryana, punjab and the union territory of chandigarh for november 27. ---- contempt proceedings the contempt proceedings proposed to be initiated by the punjab and haryana high court against district and sessions judge (bathinda) b c rajput were dropped on wednesday by the division bench comprising justices h s bedi and a s garg.the reply submitted by rajput in response to the show cause notice was found to be satisfactory.