HC raps cops for shielding own men in probe
Criticising the Delhi police for “shielding” its erring officials, the Delhi high court on Wednesday decided to monitor a probe against 34 policemen identified for allegedly taking bribe and allowing liquor smugglers to do business.
“There is total lack of action on the part of Delhi police and the courts are forced to monitor such cases”, a division bench of Acting Chief Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said while deciding to monitor the probe.
“They are going to shield their own people as the allegation was against their own officials. There seems to be no serious effort to complete the probe,” the bench said.
The police in its report, in response to the court’s July 2010 order to probe the matter, had submitted that out of all the named accused, 34 policemen and seven MCD officials were identified but others were untraceable.
The court had ordered the probe on a plea by one Chetan Sharma, who had filmed several policeman and MCD officials taking bribes from various bootleggers to let them run their illicit business with impunity. Sharma’s counsel Manish Khanna told HC that the police even failed to register a case against the officials.
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Green Tribunal issues notice on Noida pollution
Age correspondent
NEW DELHI, Feb. 1
The National Green Tribunal has sought an explanation from the ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) on why new industrial units are being allowed to be set up in Noida. The applicant informed the tribunal that the MoEF, in August 2010 had imposed a moratorium on environment clearances to be granted to new projects since Noida had been placed twelfth in the “most critically polluted cities” of India in 2009.
The MoEF had later in a review of its decision, lifted the embargo in respect of 25 industrial clusters, including Noida.
The petitioner said, “The decision of MoEF to lift the moratorium in respect of Noida is based on spurious plea that local stakeholders have initiated some work on improving the environment which has not happened on the ground. With the administration having failed to check ever increasing pollution.”
“The fact that there are just a handful of monitoring stations itself shows the negligence of authorities towards monitoring and developing proof that environmental norms are not implemented properly,” the petitioner said.
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