The state authorities has constituted a fact-finding committee of three IAS officers to adjust to an order of the Gujarat Excessive Court docket in reference to the Rajkot sport zone hearth to search out out the fault of Rajkot Municipal Company (RMC) officers.
The court docket has additionally directed that an inquiry be carried out into the working of the municipal firms in view of latest incidents, together with the Morbi bridge collapse and Harni boat capsize, reflecting dereliction of duties on the a part of the municipal commissioners of the respective firms.
A senior officer of the state authorities mentioned that the federal government has fashioned a committee of three IAS officers to “enquire into the matter as per orders of the Excessive Court docket”.
The three officers embrace P Swaroop (Commissioner of Land Reforms), Manisha Chandra (Commissioner of Rural Improvement), and Rajkumar Beniwal (Vice-Chairman & Chief Govt Officer, Gujarat Maritime Board). Whereas Swaroop is a 2003-batch officer, Chandra and Beniwal are from the 2004-batch.
The order to kind the fact-finding committee got here when the HC was listening to a suo motu public curiosity litigation on June 13. The order was made public Sunday.
The bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi referred to the Morbi Jhulto Pul collapse of 2022 and Harni lake boat capsize in Vadodara early this 12 months during which 135 and 14 folks have been killed respectively. “…these repeated incidents present that public locations managed by the firms and the locations of amusement the place footfall of public is to a big extent, have been saved unsafe for human lives, due to dereliction in discharge of duties or inaction of the pinnacle of the establishment….The Principal Secretary, City Improvement and City Housing Division, authorities of Gujarat is required to take stringent motion to place his home so as, inasmuch as, it’s evident that the working of the municipal commissioners of the firms within the state has change into aweigh,” the order said.
The court docket directed that the inquiry needs to be accomplished inside a month — by July 13 — and submitted to the court docket. In the meantime, the inquiry report into RMC’s functioning needs to be submitted by July 4.
The Excessive Court docket additionally sought a response from the state authorities on whether or not guidelines have been framed beneath Part 33 of the Gujarat Police Act, which supplies for powers and duties of the licensing authority for licensing and controlling locations of public amusement and leisure, and directed it to put the mentioned guidelines earlier than the court docket.
The path got here after the court docket noticed, “It’s tough to grasp as to how the police authorities might situation a license regulating the sale of tickets/passes for admission at a spot of public amusement beneath Part 33(x), with out adhering to the necessities of different clauses of the mentioned provisions. The police authorities, whereas issuing licences for the sale of tickets, have been required to make sure that norms for placing up the premises as a spot of public amusement or place of public leisure are adhered to”.
TRP Recreation Zone had obtained police permission solely beneath Part 33(x) of the Gujarat Police Act, which solely offers with the regulation of ticketing, whereas the institution was additionally supposed to acquire permission beneath the provisions of Part 33(w) pertaining to licensing or controlling locations of public amusement or leisure and so on.
In the meantime, referring to provisions inside the Gujarat Provincial Municipal Company Act, 1949, the Gujarat Fireplace Prevention and Life Security Measures Act, 2013, the Gujarat Regularisation of Unauthorised Improvement Act (GRUDA) 2022, in addition to the Gujarat City Planning and City Improvement Act, 1976, the court docket held that it’s as much as the state authorities to make sure that its native our bodies reminiscent of municipalities and municipal firms perform effectively. The court docket additionally mentioned municipal commissioners are being appointed by the state authorities and are beneath its direct management and supervision in as far as compliance with the instructions of the state within the discharge of their duties and tasks beneath the Act and the principles or by-laws framed.
The HC additionally refused to simply accept RMC’s assertion that the municipal commissioners have been by no means made conscious of the constructions at TRP Recreation Zone noting that such a response “can’t be believed” because the construction that had been arrange “can’t be thought of to be an invisible construction”.