It stressed that an independent agency must be roped in to “ensure the public has no doubt over the investigation” as the matter “relates to negligence on part of govt officials and may involve corruption by public servants”.
On July 27, three UPSC aspirants drowned in the basement library of Rau’s coaching centre which was flooded after very heavy rain.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela also asked the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to nominate a senior officer to oversee the probe by CBI into the criminal case in a time-bound manner and repeatedly pointed out the shortcomings in the police probe.
HC said it was unable to “fathom how the students could not come out” and sought to know whether the doors were blocked or staircases from the basement narrow.
“What’s your line of looking? How did the children drown? You have done an investigation now. We are on August 2. Why were they not able to come out of the basement? the bench demanded to know. “It doesn’t get flooded immediately. Water takes at least 2-3 minutes to fill a basement, it can’t happen in a minute.”
Pulling up the force for not questioning MCD officials, the bench told senior advocate Sanjay Jain, representing Delhi Police, “No disrespect, but we don’t think your police are equipped to handle this case.”
Why didn’t you go to the MCD office and seize the file? Will you wait till the file gets changed and evidence lost? Are you a police force or you will wait to file an RTI query for answers? You have to be serious..have you reconstructed the scene,” the bench told the local DCP and IO of the case when they said notice has been sent to the MCD.
“One wonders why files (on building plans and drain cleaning of the area) have not been taken on day one. Which are the MCD officials you have interrogated? These are very glaring omissions in the police probe. Any common man would ask these questions,” it said.
HC took a dim view of the police’s act of arresting an SUV driver and blaming him for the incident and caustically observed, “Mercifully, you have not challaned the rainwater for entering the basement. You would have said how dare the water enter the basement. You could have fined the water also, the way you arrested the SUV driver for driving his car there.”
On being informed by the MCD commissioner, who was present in the court, that the stormwater drains in the area were dysfunctional, the bench asked why the officials did not inform the MCD chief about it and ordered immediate removal of encroachments and unauthorised constructions, including on stormwater and sewage drains, in Rajender Nagar.
HC pointed out that police could arrest a passerby but hadn’t interrogated the municipal official who did not see that the stormwater drain was dysfunctional. “First of all, your police officers, we have called them here for one purpose… (to tell them) Police is respected when it books the culprit and leaves the innocent.
It rapped the MCD for not adhering to judicial orders and said its officials were not bothered and there is no respect for the law. The court asked if human lives don’t count for officials and added that there has to be some accountability.