‘DATA RECOVERY FROM HARD DISCS IMPOSSIBLE’

CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government on Wednesday told the high court that it has failed to retrieve the data from hard discs seized from the dera headquarters in Sirsa during sanitisation exercise carried out after the August 2017 violence under the supervision of a court-appointed commissioner.

The CBI too was approached for the purpose. However, it conveyed that 65 hard discs of CCTVS installed on dera premises were damaged mechanically with the intention of destroying the data and the recovery is completely impossible. These hard discs were being examined to check whether certain assets were removed from the dera premises after the violence. Some other electronic devices were examined by a state agency but it did not find any clue of movement of assets.

Meanwhile, the court allowed the Haryana Police to de-seal the electronic devices sealed by the court commissioner at the time of sanitisation exercise. The request for the same was made by government on Wednesday.

The court has asked Haryana to share details of data extracted from these devices by the enforcement directorate and income tax department for investigations launched in the wake of allegations of money laundering and violation of tax laws by the dera. Both the central government agencies and Haryana have been asked to submit status reports on their probe on analysis of the data. The court was also told that a total of 240 FIRS were registered in connection with the August 25 violence across the state and in 207 cases, challans have been presented and 1,484 people arrested.

Also, 16 people have been declared proclaimed offenders. Regarding the case of inciting violence registered in Panchkula, the SIT says out of 39 arrested accused, challans have been presented against 36.

in the case of 25 missing people, associated with the dera.

Most of these persons have been missing from the dera since long, so it is very difficult for the SIT to get any lead regarding them since no report of missing person under suspicious circumstances is coming out from any quarter, the court was told.

Only eight such persons have been traced so far while 17 are still missing.

The matter of missing persons had come to light last year during the hearings of the dera case, as some of the counsels had pointed out that many persons went missing from dera premises.

FRESH COURT ORDER

Hearing the petition of Purushotam Das, a Class-4 employee in education department, Justice Ritu Bahri of the high court had said the petitioner had been working as a part-time employee since September 22, 1993. Thereafter, he has been regularised with effect from August 8, 2014. However, some employees, junior to the petitioner have been regularised with effect from September 27, 2003, the HC said.

Justice Bahri ordered that in order to remove the agony of the employees, who are working on ad-hoc, work-charged/part-time etc, for the past more than 20 to 25 years, the state government can consider for creation of a diminishing cadre separately and regularise them immediately so that necessary benefit, after regularisation,

POLICIES RESCINDED, REVIVED, QUASHED

The two policies were rescinded by the government in April 2007 in view of the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment in Uma Devi case. However, the previous government again revived them in June 2014 to appease the employees before the assembly elections. The HC on May 31 quashed all 2014 regularisation policies stating: “In view of our aforesaid discussions, we find that the policies dated June 16,2014, June 18, 2014, July 7, 2014 and July 7, 2014, having been framed in violation of the law laid down by the Supreme Court deserve to be quashed,’’ a HC division bench had ordered.

However, the July 4 HC order of Justice Bahri, which led to Wednesday’s announcement by the state government, cited an apex court judgment saying the state is bound to regularise the services on ground of parity.

“Regularisation should be done on the principle of parity and similar placed employees who have been regularised,’’ Justice Bahri said.