Breaking | Delhi High Court Orders CBI To Probe Death Of Three Civil Aspirants In Coaching Centre Tragedy

The Delhi High Court on Friday ordered Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the deaths of three civil services aspirants due to drowning in a IAS coaching centre basement in Rajendra Nagar.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela passed the direction looking at the “seriousness of incident and that it may involve corruption by public servants.”

The development comes in a PIL seeking constitution of a High Level Committee to probe death of three aspirants.

The bench directed MCD commissioner to ensure that the drains in the area are functional and if their capacity has to be increased, the same should be done in a systematic manner at the earliest. "Encroachments and illegal constructions in the area shall be removed forthwith."

Court further remarked that physical infrastructure in Delhi like drains were laid nearly 75 years ago. It said city's physical, financial and administrative infrastructure are all "outdated" and not proportionate to its whopping population of excess of 3 crores.

"Due to various subsidy schemes, the migration in Delhi is only increasing and its population is also increasing. The financial health of civic agencies like MCD, if not precarious, is not healthy. This court would not be wrong in concluding that civic agencies in Delhi have no funds to carry out major infrastructure," it said.

During the hearing today, ASG Sanjay Jain appearing for Delhi Police submitted that the probe in the case was carried out in extreme situation of stress.

To this, the court remarked that “we are all under lot of stress” but the present scenario, “we can't come under stress.”

”The moment we come under stress, we take wrong steps. And in this case, some wrong steps have been taken. Please do investigation in scientific manner. Don't come under any stress,” the court said.

It further rapped the MCD for not adhering to the judicial orders and directions, adding that there is no respect for law.

”There has to be some accountability. The problem is some organizations have gone beyond the law. We have orders to show. I have passed a judicial order in January saying that I will wind up MCD as they were not paying salaries to its employees. I got the money from them. That matter has been pending since 2017. Imagine, since seven years we were trying to control you. Your financial health is precarious.. whenever a building is sealed today due to unauthorised construction, its size increases. From two floors, it becomes five floors. This is happening in 2024. I am not talking about some old times. Your sealing process is, you put some symbol and thread and say it's sealed. Anyone can enter, exit and construct. We keep on passing orders, they keep on falling on deaf ears,” the court said.

The Delhi Police informed court that it was doing its best to have forensic examination of every aspect in order to ascertain culpability aspect.

To this, the court said: “What's your line of looking, how the children got drowned? You've done investigation now. We are on August 2. Why were they not able to come out of basement? Water takes two three minutes to fill in a basement, it can't happen in a minute. Why were they not able to come out?”

Earlier this week, the court tore into Delhi government's "freebie" policies and said because of the "freebie culture", the government has no money to upgrade the infrastructure, particularly the city's drainage system, in face of the exploding population of the city.

The PIL seeks constitution of a district level committee in each district of the national capital to investigate and find out the illegal commercial construction in their respective districts. 

It further seeks a direction on the authorities to submit the action taken report as per the directions issued by a coordinate bench in relation to the fire incident in coaching centre in Mukherjee Nagar.

The plea also seeks constitution of a committee to probe and compile the report of the coaching institutes which are running in an illegal manner and not following the standard norms.

Yesterday, a sessions court granted bail to Manoj Kathuria, an SUV driver and businessman by profession, arrested in the case. He was denied bail by a judicial magistrate.

Apart from Kathuria, others arrested are four co-owners of the basement, namely Parvinder Singh, Harvinder Singh, Sarabjit Singh and Tajinder Singh. The four were also denied bail by the judicial magistrate. They have now approached the sessions court for bail.

Title: Kutumb v. State & Ors.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 873