Chandigarh news: CITCO closes its lounge at airport, Rs 16.77 lakh compensation to accident victim and more

A senior CITCO officer said, “On Tuesday, we withdrew all our employees, who were appointed in the lounge at CHIAL. These employees were deputed in other units of CITCO. The further course of action regarding CHIAL will be decided shortly.”

According to the information, in September 2016, the High Court had directed the Airport Authority of India (AAI) to approach CITCO for setting up lounges at the Chandigarh airport. It said that CITCO would operate executive lounges at international and domestic terminals and commercial rates were charged for the allotted areas as licence fee. However, later it was found that the passengers do not have time to visit the lounges as there was no stopover of flights at the airport and hence it was prayed to allot the internal and domestic lounges on long-term lease on rental basis. The CHIAL in November 2017 extended the allotment of executive lounges to CITCO for five years till 2021. No rebate was given but the licence fee was increased by 10 per cent.

Running into losses, CITCO decided to surrender its international lounge after giving a 30-day notice, while the domestic lounge was retained.

On July 2, CHIAL issued a notice for the termination of space allotted for the domestic lounge to CITCO on grounds that the latter had not fulfilled the conditions of the licence, including the termination of licence qua international lounge and thus, CITCO was directed to vacate the domestic lounge by August 10.

Following the development, CITCO moved Chandigarh Court against the notice of CHIAL, directing it to vacate the domestic lounge premises by August 10. Meanwhile, CHIAL submitted its reply that CITCO “cannot be permitted to blow hot and cold in the same breadth”, as they had withdrawn from operating the International lounge.

However, in its reply, CHIAL said that both the lounges were allotted as a single unit. Thus, CITCO cannot operate the International lounge and it was CHIAL’s right to withdraw the operation of the domestic lounge.

Civic body pays Rs 5 lakh in damages to Panchkula resident

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday was informed that the Panchkula Municipal Corporation has paid an amount of Rs 5 lakh as compensation to a resident in accordance with an order passed by the court in May 2017. The cost had been imposed on the municipality as it had ignored the regular complaints of the resident.

The resident, Pradeep Singh, in February 2017 had filed a petition seeking arrangements to stop the flow of dirty water of Saketri village oozing out of the gutter passing through his plot. While the writ petition was disposed of in August 2018 after redressal of the problem, the interim order of May 2017 for compensation was never complied with, forcing the resident to file a contempt petition against the municipality officials, including Commissioner Rajesh Jogpal.

On Tuesday, the information regarding payment being made to the resident was given in the contempt petition. The court earlier had pulled up Jogpal for ignoring the court orders and not complying with the directions for payment of compensation to the resident.

Rs 16.77 lakh compensation for man killed in accident

The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) awarded a compensation of Rs 16.77 lakh to the family of a 45-year-old agriculturist, who died in a road accident near Derabassi in Mohali in 2017.

According to the petition, the accident took place on April 19, 2017, when the victim, Avtar Singh of Derbassi, was riding a motorcycle (HR03G-2396) from Panchkula to his residence. He was riding on the left side of the road at a moderate speed, while his son Gurdit Singh was following the motorcycle of Avtar Singh on another motorcycle.

The accident occurred around 7.30 pm when the father-son duo reached near Sushma Square, Dhakoli on the road from Kundi village to Paragpur village, when a Ford Ikon Car (HR-01-0A-3030) driven by Harpreet Singh came form behind and overtook the motorcycle of Gurdit Singh and led his motorcycle towards the extreme left of the road in the katcha portion. The car also hit Avtar Singh’s motorcycle from behind. As a result, Avtar Singh fell down along with his motorcycle and suffered multiple severe injuries. The accused Harpreet Singh ran away from the spot with his car, while the victim was taken to a hospital at Derabassi, however, on reaching the hospital Avtar Singh was declared brought dead.

The family of the victim, seeking a compensation of Rs 45 lakhs, filed a case at MACT on July 31, 2017. According to the victim’s wife, Kulwant Kaur, her husband was about 45-year-old and was earning Rs 25,000 per month by working as a driver and agriculturist.

The defence counsel argued that no accident had taken place with their accused’s vehicle and a false FIR was lodged against the police.

However, after hearing the arguments and facts of the case, the tribunal directed Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company, the insurer of the offending vehicle to pay a compensation amount of Rs 16,77,776.