Six people arrested in connection with the Satya Niketan building collapse failed to take adequate safety precautions during construction creating a situation that endangered the PG student’s lives and resulted in their deaths and serious injuries, Delhi Police told the high court in its status report.
It is further revealed that after the incident, the accused persons left the spot instead of taking responsibility and assisting in the immediate aftermath of the incident. The premises were being commercially let out without obtaining the requisite permissions from the competent authorities. The owners had also not engaged, hired or obtained advice from any qualified structural engineer/architect in respect of the basement repair and the construction/structural modification work carried out at the ground-floor shops and other portions of the building. It added, “That, prima facie, the six arrested accused persons failed to take adequate safety precautions during the construction/repair/modification/alteration work carried out in and around the building, which resulted in a situation endangering human life and ultimately caused deaths and serious injuries to PG students and other persons.
In its status report filed on September 21, the police further stated that the accused left the site after the incident instead of taking responsibility and assisting in the immediate aftermath. On September 7, the high court had asked Delhi police, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and Delhi University to respond to the petition, and had asked MCD to conduct an inquiry at the highest executive level into the collapse of the building at Satya Niketan, calling the incident as unfortunate and saying that the same could have been avoided had the authorities been alive to the statutory duty cast upon them.
“It has further been found during investigation, that no land-use conversion permission had been obtained by the said persons. There is no complaint received about this property as per available records maintained at PS South Campus prior to this incident,” the report said.
The eight page status report which will be considered by a bench of chief justice DK Upadhyaya and justice Tejas Karia on Friday added that during investigation it was revealed the building owner Urmila Gupta, her husband Hari Ram Gupta and her son Mahesh Gupta jointly manage the property and they did not obtain land use conversion permission, let out the premises commercially without obtaining the permission from the authorities. The report was filed in a petition filed by one Aniket Kumar Gupta, who sought directions for a fair and comprehensive investigation into the collapse, including an examination of the roles of the owner, contractor, builder, architect, structural engineer and workers.
