The L-G's lawyer stated that the objective of the vilification campaign was to browbeat his client and "to discourage him from performing his Constitutional obligations in his capacity as the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi". (Express file photo by Shivam Kumar Jha)Delhi news live updates (September 6): In an escalation of the tussle between L-G VK Saxena and the Aam Aadmi Party over corruption allegations levelled by the latter against him, the L-G has sent a legal notice to five AAP leaders to stop levelling defamatory allegations and issue an apology. The AAP has accused the L-G of being involved in a “scam” where two cashiers had allegedly exchanged demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bank notes at Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan in 2016. It also alleged that he had given the contract to design the Khadi Lounge in Mumbai to his daughter without a tender.
In other news, Rajpath and the Central Vista lawns in Delhi are expected to be renamed as ‘Kartavya Path’ (Path of Duty) soon, with the New Delhi Municipal Council calling a special meeting on Wednesday to discuss the change. According to NDMC Vice Chairperson and BJP leader Satish Upadhyay, the proposal for the change in name has not reached the council yet, but a meeting has been called. “We are convening a special meeting to discuss and rename the Central Vista and Rajpath stretch as Kartavya Path on September 7. The proposal is yet to come but the meeting has been called. All members and officials concerned will participate in the meeting,” he said.
Meanwhile, a 52-year-old kingpin of an auto theft gang, who has allegedly been involved in the theft of over 5,000 cars across India, was arrested by the special staff of Central Delhi police on August 23. Police said they also found illegal firearms and ammunition in his possession. According to police, the accused, Assam native Anil Chauhan, had previously been involved in 180 criminal cases including carrying illegal arms and rhino horn smuggling.
Union Minister Smriti Irani (Express file photo)
After a 25-year-old man allegedly killed his mother at their Rohini home, police found that he sat in a room with her body for three days, sprinkled Ganga jal on her, and tried to hide the stench with deodorant. On Sunday evening, police said, he allegedly killed himself by slitting his throat.
A PCR call was made by a neighbour around 8 pm, who told police she was informed by his mother’s friend about the incident. Police found the deceased in a pool of blood on the floor while his mother’s decomposing body was in the bathroom.
Senior police officers said the man had received a call from his mother’s friend on Sunday at 7 pm. “When she asked after his mother, he told her that he killed her on Thursday and that the body was inside their house. He then said he was going to commit suicide,” claimed an officer. The friend immediately informed the neighbour and police but he could not be saved, police said. Read more here
Days after a 48-year-old CBI legal advisor allegedly died by suicide at his service quarters in South Delhi’s Hudco Place, police have said the autopsy report and preliminary investigation do not indicate foul play. Police Monday also said no case has been registered so far and they are conducting inquest proceedings under CrPC sections.
Earlier in the day, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had alleged that the officer died by suicide because of pressure to implicate him in the investigation into the excise policy scam. The CBI denied the allegations, calling them “mischievous and misleading”.
Jitendra Kumar, who was posted as deputy legal advisor in CBI, was found hanging Thursday morning. He hailed from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh and lived alone in Delhi. A purported suicide note was also found at the spot where he mentioned that nobody is responsible for his death. Read the full report here
A massive fire broke out at a four-storey commercial building near Chandni Chowk Metro station Sunday night, with 40 tenders from across the city and 150 personnel — working in three shifts — being pressed into action to douse the blaze in an ongoing operation lasting over 15 hours.
The Delhi Fire Services (DFS) said a call was received around 10.40 pm regarding the fire. DFS chief Atul Garg said on Monday morning, “Initially, six fire tenders were rushed to the site. Later, the fire call was upgraded to ‘serious’… the fire is under control now. No injuries or casualties are reported.”
When The Indian Express visited the area on Monday, it found firemen battling the layout of Chandni Chowk as much as the fire. While the building continued to emit smoke, personnel worked to keep the smouldering interior from rising in temperature again in a “cooling operation”.
They were hampered by the layout of the area, sandwiched on one side by a park and shops on the other, and having to drive through a road only a couple of metres wider than their fire tenders. They could not enter the building itself, as the prolonged fire, fed overnight by the textiles within, had caused a portion of it collapse, forcing them to hose it down from the outside. Arnav Chandrasekhar reports
Two days after an 11-year-old boy went missing from a madrasa in Nuh district, his body was recovered from a room near a mosque on the madrasa premises on Monday afternoon.
Police said they have registered a case of murder against unidentified accused.
According to police, the incident was reported around 12.30 pm, following which a team from the local station went to the spot. Read more here
Commander Sureshwar Dhari Sinha, an Indian Navy veteran and environmentalist who played a crucial role in petitioning the Supreme Court in a matter concerning flow of water in the Yamuna, passed away at his home in Delhi on Sunday.
He was 88, and had been unwell for the past couple of years. Sinha, who was from Bihar, was commissioned in the Indian Navy in 1954, and was the Commanding Officer of INS Kadmatt, an anti-submarine ship, in the late 1960s. He retired in the 1970s and set up a business making transistor chips.
An activist, he tried to draw attention to the state of the rivers, particularly the Yamuna and the Ganga, said C Uday Bhasker, his son-in-law. “He set up his own NGO called Paani Morcha… he was the chairman. They used to work here in Delhi and in Bihar. As he grew older, he was not able to sustain the NGO, and it is now not particularly active. He was also against a lot of the dams and diversions that were being done,” Bhasker said.
Manoj Misra, convenor, Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan, said, “For us, he was the grand old river warrior. The first real Supreme Court case for the Yamuna was filed by him, and he did it single-handedly. He had no lawyer to represent him. This was a case which, for the first time, asked for e-flow in the river. It was the case in which the Supreme Court directed that a minimum of 10 cumecs must be there in the river throughout. It was a very impactful piece of work, though later on, he focused more on Ganga. He was one of the founder members of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan and one of our patrons.” Read more here
On the occasion of Teacher’s Day, the Delhi government felicitated 118 teachers with the State Teachers’ Award at Thyagaraj Stadium Monday in recognition of their exceptional contribution to the field of education.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who presided over the ceremony, said: “Teachers play an important role in nation building. They influence thousands of lives with their work and are considered role models by their students.”
The recipients included special educators, art and music teachers, librarians, sports teachers, school principals, and vice principals. The Indian Express spoke to some of the recipients. Read here
Pulling up the Municipal Corporation of Delhi for indiscriminately repairing the roads without any basic care and caution, the Delhi High Court has directed it to pay an amount of Rs 9 lakh as compensation to an octogenarian from West Azad Nagar whose home suffered waterlogging due to years of repair work, the adjoining road rose by about 2 and a half feet.
The division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad rejected the MCD’s argument that since the colony was unplanned and was subsequently regularised, they have been repairing the roads on ‘as is where is basis’. “A Municipal Corporation constituted for the precise purpose of providing basic amenities to the citizens cannot shirk responsibility on the ground that the society was once unauthorised,” said the court.
The bench further said the MCD has woefully failed in discharging its duties “in as much as it has admittedly laid down roads one over the other thereby increasing the height of the roads which ought not to have been done”. The MCD has also not ensured that there are proper stormwater drains in the area so that the rainwater can be drained away, it added. Read more here
The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights has issued a notice to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi “seeking an explanation” for the poor performance of its schools at the class III level in last year’s National Achievement Survey (NAS).
This comes amid the ongoing face-off between the AAP and BJP over the Delhi government’s work in education. The Delhi BJP has been attacking the Delhi government’s ‘education model’ on various fronts, including alleging a scam in the construction of classrooms.
The National Achievement Survey was conducted in November 2021 for students in classes III, V and VIII and its findings were released this May. The report had shown Delhi to be featured in the five states with the lowest average score in both Math and Language at the class III level. Read the full report here
More from Cities
The Delhi Police Crime Branch has arrested a 28-year-old man who allegedly impersonated an Indian Army major, and cheated and raped a woman constable on the pretext of providing her relatives with jobs.
According to police, the accused cheated the complainant of Rs 28 lakh on the pretext of providing jobs for her brother and cousins in the Army and Bihar Police. Police said they met on an online matrimonial portal. The woman is posted with the CISF.
Police said they had gone to arrest the accused from his native place in Bihar but the man allegedly attacked the policemen and locked them in a room with the help of locals. The accused was later arrested from Jharkhand.
Cases were registered against the accused in Delhi and Bihar. He was also declared a proclaimed offender by the court. Several raids were conducted in Delhi, Bihar, UP and Jharkhand as the accused was frequently changing his location, said police. Read the full report here
The spectacle of the Supertech twin towers being demolished over, it is now up to roughly 120 men and women to clear the site.
The demolition on August 28 left debris of 80,000 tonnes, with Edifice Engineering helming the process to remove at least 30,000 tonnes. Work pertaining to the repair of a boundary wall and establishment of separation between the demolition site and buildings in the vicinity is also being carried out.
With excavators and cranes, workers are busy clearing the mountain of rubble, where steel is being separated from concrete to be processed at a concrete waste plant. Malavika Prasad reports
The Delhi Police on Monday said a preliminary investigation into the alleged suicide of a CBI officer, who was found hanging at his residence here, as well as the post-mortem report do not indicate any foul play.
Jitendra Kumar (48), posted as a deputy legal advisor at the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) Lodhi Road office here, was found hanging in his house at S-22, type-4 Hudco Place on September 1.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia alleged on Monday that Kumar ended his life because of pressure to frame him in a false excise case and demanded an "independent judicial" probe into his death. The federal agency dismissed the charge as "mischievous and misleading". (PTI)
The death of former chairman of Tata Sons Cyrus Mistry in a road accident near Palghar in Maharashtra has initiated a debate on road safety issues such as check on over-speeding, wearing of seat belts for rear passengers and inconsistent road designs.
Experts have pressed for the need to keep a check on speeding vehicles and making the use of seat belts for rear passengers mandatory. They have also stressed that roads in Delhi should have consistent designs to avoid any accidents.
"Inconsistency in road design can be spotted at a few stretches in the national capital which include Eastern and Western Peripheral expressways, Outer Ring Road, Ring Road among others. For example, at some points a six-lane road reduces into a four-lane stretch and uneven surfaces can also be witnessed at many locations. These issues pose a threat to driving and shall be done away with," Chief Scientist, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), New Delhi, S Velmurugan said. (PTI)
A 52-year-old kingpin of an auto theft gang, who has allegedly been involved in the theft of over 5,000 cars across India, was arrested by the special staff of Central Delhi police on August 23. Police said they also found illegal firearms and ammunition in his possession.
According to police, the accused, Assam native Anil Chauhan, had previously been involved in 180 criminal cases including carrying illegal arms and rhino horn smuggling. Read more
THEY had a much-talked-about meeting, full of bonhomie and mutual praise, in Patna. However, as Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar began his Delhi sojourn Monday in pursuit of his national ambitions, the points of departure between him and his recent guest, Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao or KCR, were evident.
This is Nitish’s first visit to the Capital since leaving the NDA and returning to the Mahagathbandhan fold. If one of his first calls after turning the tables on the BJP was to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi is among his first ports of call. Sources said Nitish wanted to meet Sonia too in Delhi, but she is out of the country. Read full Political Pulse here
A new consumer survey shows strong support from Delhi consumers for the proposed aggregator scheme of the city government which requires a time-bound transition to electric vehicles by last-mile delivery and e-commerce companies.
The proposed scheme sets an April 30, 2030 deadline for the complete transition of Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) to electric vehicles (EV) among e-commerce, delivery and transport logistics service providers.
Commissioned by the Sustainable Mobility Network and conducted by CMSR Consultants, the survey shows that 80 per cent of the 1,508 respondents in Delhi attributed last-mile delivery vehicles as one of the reasons for rising air pollution in the city. (PTI)
BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa has filed a police complaint against fact checker and co-founder of Alt News website Mohammed Zubair, accusing him of "spreading hate" against cricketer Arshdeep Singh and the Sikh community with his tweet.
The player became a victim of vicious trolling on social media after he dropped a catch during India's five-wicket loss to arch-rival Pakistan in the Super four match of the Asia Cup in Dubai on Sunday.
In his complaint filed at the Parliament Street police station, Sirsa cited a tweet by Zubair where he had shared screenshots of tweets against Singh posted on various handles. (PTI)
The real estate regulator for the national capital -- Delhi-RERA -- has registered DDA's 18 ongoing projects and has also imposed a penalty of Rs 1 lakh per project for delay in making applications of registration process, sources said on Monday. The regulator has also fined Rs 25 lakh each for 12 of the 18 projects for "delay in submitting documents," they said.
Delhi-RERA and DDA (Delhi Development Authority) have been at loggerheads for the last several months over the issue that whether the urban body was required to register their projects with the regulator.
"A fine of Rs 1 lakh per project has been imposed for delay in making applications of registration process of the 18 projects. In 12 of these projects, another fine of Rs 25 lakh each has been slapped for delay in submitting documents," an official source said. (PTI)
The Delhi Police Monday told the High Court that people can report on 112 or tag the traffic police @dtptraffic on Twitter if they find any unmanned barricades on roads in the national capital. The court had last month pulled up police for blocking the roads during rush hours.
The division bench of Justices Mukta Gupta and Anish Dayal said the liberty available to the public appears to be a welcome step to keep a check on the unmanned barricades. However, the court enquired about the decision to allow residential welfare associations to put barricades inside the colonies where there are no gates and asked whether any pilot study has been done. Read more
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi. The two leaders are learnt to have discussed the current political situation in the country and ways to ensure Opposition unity.
Kumar also met Janata Dal (Secular) chief H D Kumaraswamy at the latter's residence. The meeting between Gandhi and Kumar at the former Congress chief's residence lasted almost an hour. Kumar was accompanied by Bihar Water Resources Minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Sanjay Kumar Jha.
This is the first meeting between Gandhi and Kumar since the latter walked out of the NDA in Bihar and formed a 'Mahagathbandhan' government with RJD, Congress and outside support of the Left. (PTI)
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is scheduled to meet CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI leader D Raja in Delhi on Tuesday. The Janata Dal (United) leader arrived in the national capital on Monday.
Kumar, who snapped ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last month, on Sunday said his only goal is to work for uniting the Opposition to unseat the saffron party from power at the Centre.
Kumar's visit to Delhi comes amidst the buzz within the JD(U) that he may emerge as the Opposition's prime ministerial face in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. (PTI)