Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has directed the state government to investigate the functioning of all municipal commissioners, citing fatal incidents like the Rajkot gaming zone fire, Morbi suspension bridge collapse, and Harni Lake boat capsize, which indicate “dereliction of duties” by these officials.
The High Court commented that “the working of the Municipal Commissioners of the Corporations in the state has become aweigh”. A division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi, acting on a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL), stated, “We also require that in overall supervising role of the state government, an inquiry be conducted into the working of the municipal corporations in the state in view of recent incidents reflecting dereliction of duties on the part of the municipal commissioners of the respective Corporations in the state of Gujarat, which have become evident with unfortunate incidents such as the Morbi Bridge Collapse, Harni Lake boat tragedy and Rajkot TRP gaming zone fire incident”.
The bench noted that these incidents have shown that corporations have kept public places and places of amusement where public footfall is large “unsafe for human lives, because of dereliction in discharge of duties or inaction of the head of the institution”.
On May 25, 27 people, including many children, were burned to death in the Rajkot TRP gaming zone fire incident. In January, a boat capsized in Harni Lake during a joyride, killing 12 students and two teachers in Vadodara. Earlier, in October 2022, 135 people drowned in the Machchhu river after a British-era suspension bridge collapsed in Morbi town. In all these cases, serious security lapses were found to be violated by private firms right under the nose of civic authorities, lacking approvals and security clearances.
The division bench stated, “The Principal Secretary, Urban Development and Urban Housing Department is required to take stringent action to put his house in order, in as much as, it is evident that the working of the municipal commissioners of the corporations in the state has become aweigh”. The court emphasized that stringent actions should be taken to act as a deterrent against any such lapses by officers in the future. The court has also requested an inquiry and action taken report from the principal secretary within a month.
On May 26, after taking suo motu cognizance of the Rajkot fire, the High Court remarked that the Rajkot fire was a “man-made disaster” and criticized the government for not taking action against senior supervisory officers like commissioners in any of these cases.
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