Chandigarh, April 7: A CBI court in Mohali on Monday sentenced Punjab’s former Senior Superintendent of Police Devinder Singh Garcha and former Superintendent of Police, Headquarters, Paramdip Singh Sandhu to five years of rigorous imprisonment each, in connection with the 2007 sex scandal in Moga.

Besides the imprisonment under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the court imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh each.

Garcha and Sandhu were arrested and charged with blackmailing influential persons to extort money.

Former Inspector Amarjit Singh was sentenced to six-and-a-half years of rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs 2.5 lakh, while former Sub-Inspector Raman Kumar was sentenced to eight years of rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs 3 lakh.

Both were found guilty of implicating prominent businessmen in a false gangrape case to extort money from them.

CBI Special Judge Rakesh Gupta pronounced the verdict after convicting Garcha, Sandhu, Raman Kumar, and Amarjit Singh under Sections 13(1) (D) and 13 (2) of the PC Act on March 29.

Besides corruption, Raman Kumar was also convicted of extortion, while Amarjit Singh was convicted of attempting extortion.

The CBI court acquitted Barjinder Singh, alias Makhan, the son of former Punjab minister Tota Singh, and Sukhraj Singh of all the charges.

The CBI took over the probe on the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s direction on December 11, 2007. A day later, the central probe agency registered a fresh FIR in the case.

The sex scandal involved high-profile politicians and senior police officials extorting rich people by trapping them in a flesh trade case.

As per the investigation, the accused public servants abused their positions and entered into a criminal conspiracy to obtain undue pecuniary gain by corrupt and illegal means.

According to the charge sheet, two women, including Manjit Kaur, in connivance with the police officers and Barjinder Singh, extorted money from influential people by threatening to frame them in sexual abuse cases if they refused to pay up.

Jammu, April 7: The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly was informed on Monday that Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha has given assent to three bills passed by the House earlier.

Manoj Kumar Pandit, secretary, Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, informed the House that three Bills passed by the Legislative Assembly were assented to by the Lt Governor on March 25.

The Secretary read out in the House: “Three Bills, passed by the Legislative Assembly, have been assented to by the Lieutenant Governor on the 25th of March, 2025. The Bills include The Jammu and Kashmir Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2025 (L.A. Bill No. 1 of 2025), The Jammu and Kashmir Appropriation Bill, 2025 (L.A. Bill No. 2 of 2025) and The Jammu and Kashmir Appropriation Bill, 2025 (L.A. Bill No. 3 of 2025).”

The House resumed question hour after ruckus marred the proceedings in the morning, forcing Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather to adjourn the House for 15 minutes.

National Conference MLAs Nazir Gurezi and Tanvir Sadiq demanded that the question hour be deferred to allow a discussion on the Waqf Amendment Act.

The demand was supported by Congress, PDP and some other members, while the BJP opposed the move.

The Speaker ruled that since the matter is sub judice, he cannot allow a debate on the subject.

Former Chief Minister and PDP Chief Mehbooba Mufti termed the rejection of the adjournment motion on the Waqf Amendment Act “profoundly disappointing” and accused the NC government of yielding to the BJP’s “anti-Muslim” agenda.

“It’s profoundly disappointing that the speaker J&K Assembly has rejected the motion on the Waqf Bill. Despite securing a strong mandate, the government appears to have completely yielded to the BJP’s anti-Muslim agenda, cynically attempting to appease both sides,” Mehbooba Mufti wrote in her post on X.

Senior religious and separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq also criticised the Speaker’s decision. The Mirwaiz said on X: “It is ridiculous and condemnable that Tamil Nadu which only has 6% Muslim population, passes a strong anti Wakf resolution in it’s assembly, while the Muslim majority J&K assembly speaker is struggling and refusing, by hiding behind technicalities, to discuss this deeply concerting issue for the Muslims of the state. The speaker would know that the strong peoples mandate given to his party was precisely for the reason that the party had promised to safeguard the interests of the people being trampled upon since August 2019 and take a stand for them in critical matters. Why is he capitulating so meekly?”

Kolkata, April 7: As West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee prepares to meet a group of job losers in state-run schools on Monday, following the Supreme Court’s order that annulled 25,753 teaching and non-teaching jobs last week, questions are arising about whether this is a political gimmick or a genuine effort to solve the problem.

The Chief Minister, as promised, will be present at the meeting to listen to these job losers about their contentions and suggest ways to resolve the looming crisis.

The first confusion is whether the “tainted” candidates, who reportedly got jobs after paying money, will also be present at the meeting along with the “genuine” ones who lost jobs because of the failure to segregate “tainted” from “genuine candidates.

Several reportedly “genuine” candidates, who have received entry passes for the proposed meeting at Netaji Indoor Stadium in central Kolkata, said they had received the passes because they were the “genuine” ones and, hence, will not allow “ineligible” ones without entry passes to be present at the meeting.

However, another section, who have not received entry passes, claimed that since the entire panel of 25,753 jobs was cancelled because of the segregation failure, how can it be decided now — who is “genuine” and who is not?

The second complication or confusion over the meeting is where the entry passes for the said meeting were issued. While those who have received such entry passes have claimed that those were issued from the state secretariat of Nabanna, those who have not received such entry passes have claimed that they are not aware of who the actual organiser of the scheduled meeting was and hence who issued such passes.

However, officially, the state government has maintained that the convener of the meeting is an association of jobless people who are now deprived of jobs because of the apex court order, and the Chief Minister is going there to listen to them on humanitarian grounds.

Already, candidates — those having entry passes and those who do not have the passes — have assembled in front of the Netaji Indoor Stadium, and there have been several rounds of altercations between the two groups. A huge police contingent is already present at the spot, trying to keep the two groups at a distance.

The third complication is that an eminent painter and a prominent writer from West Bengal are also scheduled to speak at the proposed meeting. Political observers feel that the invitation to the painter and the writer is redundant since the entire matter of finding a solution is purely “legal” and “administrative.”