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Journalism of Courage
After the Gujarat High Court in May granted bail to three security guards accused in the Morbi bridge collapse incident, ticket clerks Madevbhai Solanki and Mansukhbhai Topiya – also accused in the case – have moved HC seeking bail. The court on Wednesday issued notice, keeping them returnable for June 9.
Meanwhile, advocate Rahul Sharma, opposing the bail applications on behalf of the victims of the bridge collapse that killed 135 people, told the court of Justice Samir Dave that the ticket clerks “were black marketing tickets and it led to overloading of the bridge”.
Following this, Justice Dave remarked in Gujarati to senior advocate B B Naik, appearing on behalf of the two accused: “He (Sharma) is saying they were black-marketing, what were they doing? Were they taking more money, despite being paid a salary by the company?”
Sharma further pointed out that while the bridge had a capacity to hold 100 people at a time, there were 400 people on the bridge when it collapsed.
Naik responded that there was no mention regarding permissible capacity on the bridge in the contract (between the municipality and Oreva Group, which was in charge of operating and maintaining the bridge).
Notably, while granting bail earlier to the three accused security personnel, the state prosecution had not particularly opposed their bail pleas. The prosecution had then said that the principal liability according to investigation and prosecution appears to be that of Oreva Group as well as the persons who performed the job of fabrication on the bridge.
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