New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has called for a report within two months from the committee constituted by government of India to place before the court its recommendations on steps to be taken to prevent recurrence of incidents of flooding of coaching institutes like the one that happened in Rajinder Nagar area of the national capital.
MHA had set up a committee in July
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had in July this year in the aftermath of the Old Rajinder Nagar incident set up a committee to inquire into the unfortunate incident at the coaching centre in New Delhi. The committee’s mandate was to inquire into the reasons, fix responsibility, suggest measures and recommend policy changes. The committee set up by the MHA has additional secretary, urban Affairs Ministry, Principal Secretary (Home), Delhi Government, Special CP, Delhi Police, Fire Advisor and Joint secretary, MHA as convener and it was to submit its report in 30 days.
However, since the setting up of the committee in July, the committee has met only one time.
The bench of Justice Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan on Friday took cognisance of the issue and also directed the states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to apprise of measures taken by them to prevent incident like the one that happened in Delhi (RAU’s IAS coaching institute ) and apprise the court with with legislative and policy measures taken by the states states and also on regulatory mechanism put in place to prevent such occurrences.
Apex court was hearing a suo motu cognisance it initiated after Rajendra Nagar coaching institute deaths
The court order comes on suo motu proceedings initiated by the court last month while dealing with a petition by the coaching federation of India challenging Delhi high court order that had said “all coaching and tuition centres are mandatorily required to ensure compliance of fire NOCs and Fire Safety Certificates as prescribed in the Master Plan for Delhi, 2021.”
Three IAS aspirants died in RAU’s IAS coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar on July 27
On July 27, three IAS aspirants had died in the RAU’s IAS coaching centre in old Rajinder Nagar area of Delhi when the basement library of the centre was flooded after a nearby drain burst.
Supreme court had on August 5, said, “The recent unfortunate incidents taking away lives of some young aspirants, who joined the coaching centres for their carrier pursuits, are eye opener for one and all. We, therefore, deem it appropriate to expand the scope of these proceedings, suo motu, and issue notice to (i) Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Union of India and (ii) NCT of Delhi through the Chief Secretary, to show cause as to what safety norms have been prescribed so far and, if so, what is the effective mechanism introduced to ensure their compliance.”