Delhi High Court hands over probe into deaths at UPSC coaching centre to CBI
#News Bureau August 2,2024
CBI will investigate the deaths in UPSC coaching center. The Delhi High Court on Friday handed over the case from Delhi Police to the CBI. Slamming the Municipal Corporation of Delhi i.e. MCD and Delhi Police over the deaths of UPSC candidates, the court said, ‘It is not understandable how three UPSC candidates drowned; this has become a common thing and the MCD officials do not care about it.’
The High Court asked the MCD officials why they did not inform the commissioner about the deteriorating stormwater drain in Rajendra Nagar. The court also taunted the officials and said, ‘Thankfully you did not challan the rainwater entering the basement, the way you arrested the SUV driver for driving the car there.’
The division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela gave the direction as ‘the incident is serious and public servants may be involved in corruption’, reported Live Law.
The High Court’s decision came on a PIL seeking the formation of a high-level committee to probe the death of three candidates in the basement of Rao IAS Coaching Centre. Earlier this week, the court had criticised the Delhi government’s ‘freebie’ policies and said that due to the ‘freebie culture’, the government does not have money to improve infrastructure, especially the city’s drainage system, in view of the city’s growing population.
Taking a dig at the arrest of an SUV driver passing through the area, the High Court said that it is a great relief that no challan for rainwater flowing in the drain was issued for the death of three civil service candidates who drowned in the basement.
The court indicated that many senior officials may be involved in the case. It said, ‘Keeping in view the nature of the incident and to ensure that there is no doubt in the minds of the public about the investigation, this Court entrusts the investigation to the CBI.’
The court said that the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is directed to appoint a senior officer to monitor the CBI investigation and ensure that the investigation is completed in a time-bound manner.
The court directed the MCD commissioner to ensure that the drains in the area remain functional and if their capacity has to be increased then it should be done in a systematic manner at the earliest. It said that encroachments and illegal constructions in the area should be removed immediately.
The court further observed that the physical infrastructure in Delhi like drains was built about 75 years ago. It said that the physical, financial and administrative infrastructure of the city are all old and not proportionate to the huge population of over 3 crore.
“Due to various subsidy schemes, migration to Delhi is increasing and its population is also increasing. The financial position of civic agencies like the MCD is not healthy. This court would not be wrong in concluding that civic agencies in Delhi have no funds to carry out major infrastructure projects,” the court said, according to a report by Live Law, a website that reports court cases.
The PIL seeks the formation of a district-level committee in each district of the national capital to investigate and detect illegal commercial constructions in the respective districts.
