Gujarat to increase compensation for Morbi victims, injured, HC told

Treating the Morbi bridge incident as a special case, the state informed the court that the government has passed an order dated December 10 to pay an additional Rs 4 lakh ex gratia each to relatives of the deceased, an additional Rs 1 lakh to the injured having less than 40 per cent disability, and an additional Rs 2 lakh to those with more than 40 per cent disability among those injured.

The government had announced and disbursed Rs 4 lakh ex gratia for the deceased and another Rs 50,000 along with free treatment for those injured. The Centre had announced an additional Rs 2 lakh for the deceased and Rs 50,000 for injured. With the revision, the kin of the deceased will now be entitled to total Rs 10 lakh compensation and the injured will get between Rs 2 and Rs 3 lakh.

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Aravind Kumar expressed its dissatisfaction at no imputation of charges yet against the then chief officer of the Morbi municipality SV Zala, despite the state’s assurance of disciplinary actions as well the interim report of the Special Investigation Team “pointing to various technical and administrative lapses on the part of Morbi municipality”.

Noting the preliminary findings of the SIT, which has been submitted to the court in a sealed cover, the court noted, “…Perusal of the preliminary findings by SIT would disclose that the main cable was formed by seven strands, each comprising seven steel wires. Total 49 wires were clubbed together in these seven strands to form this cable and they (SIT) found or observed that out of 49 wires, 22 were corroded which indicates those wires were already broken before the incident. The remaining 27 wires, according to the preliminary findings, had recently broken.”

“It would also indicate that no load test or structural test was conducted before opening the bridge and the work of the bridge was completed on October 25, 2022 and bridge was opened on 26.10.2022. It would also indicate that the movement on the bridge was not regulated and several design faults were found… the report suggests that the company with which the Nargarpalika/collector had entered into the MoU, had outsourced the repair works to a non competent agency,” the court noted.

The bench on Monday directed the state to place on record by the next date of hearing “the policies which it would formulate to meet the exigencies which had occasioned on account of collapse of the bridge, both by way of regulatory mechanism as well as rehabilitation steps”.

The court also observed that the SIT, too, had made similar recommendations and noted, “We hope and trust that by the next date of hearing, the state would place on record the proposed policies and specify the number of public structures used by the public regularly and periodically by any one particular authority… The said committee has also strongly recommended that any structure that is being used by the public should be periodically inspected by the competent authority and guidelines should be used for safety, security, repairs, operation and maintenance of such structures… We trust the state government will respond to the same effectively…”

The court permitted one petitioner Dilip Chavda to add Ajanta Manufacturing as a party and has kept the matter on December 21 for the limited purpose of taking up the application of impleadment of the proposed respondent and issuing notice to the company.

The court also nominated advocates Varun Patel and Shikha Panchal to be appointed as amicus curiae in the case so as to assist the court.