The Gujarat High Court Monday indicated that it would be seeking a personal affidavit of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) commissioner with respect to the Harni lake boat capsize incident that killed 12 students and two teachers of a school earlier this month. Earlier, the high court had taken suo motu cognisance of the incident and sought a report from the state government. Taken up by the division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayee, the court Monday questioned VMC’s role and accountability in the incident. “This was the contractor that was engaged by the corporation, so what is the duty of the corporation? They give contracts to private persons and then sleep? Whether they supervise if they are following norms, any instructions as to how they will manage? These are water bodies which are supposed to be managed by the corporations. If the corporation uses these water bodies for amusement, they can do it, no issues about that. But if they are giving these water bodies to some private persons, there has to be some instructions, accountability and supervision. So where is that? After the incident they woke up," CJ Agarwal asked, addressing Advocate General Kamal Trivedi, who was representing the state. In an interim report dated January 25, based on an inquiry by Vadodara Collector AB Gor, it was revealed that VMC had asked the PPP vendor Kotia Projects “about implementation and the condition of the agreement” on two occasions prior to the incident — on November 2 and 3, 2022 — following which the vendor had replied on compliance of the provisions made in the agreement. The report notes that the “vendor has blatantly violated” “essential conditions of the agreement”. Relying on the report, the AG pointed out that no show-cause notices were, however, issued at the time. But CJ Agarwal remarked that without show-cause notices, “this is only an eyewash on the corporation’s part”. The court also suggested the state that “there has to be a policy which is to be framed by the state government for all of them (contractors running public places) to follow that and then accountability. If you’re framing a policy, then accountability is the first step. Contractor is a contractor but accountability is the officer of the corporation.” According to an affidavit filed by the state through Nipuna Torawane, secretary (home) of the Home Department, before the HC Monday, nine of the 20 accused in the case have been arrested so far, while one — Hitesh Kotia — had expired on May 31, 2019. Lookout notices have been issued against eight others who have not yet been arrested, while the process of getting passport details of two others is underway with the office of the Regional Passport Office. The state also submitted that all district magistrates, municipal commissioners, police commissioners and regional commissioners were instructed to conduct an inquiry and a review of all water bodies where boating is carried out — including lakes, rivers, reservoirs and sea, for the availability of emergency life-saving equipment, condition of boats, seating capacity rules and sufficient life jackets, among others. The communication notes that the officials were instructed to submit a report in this regard to the home department within 15 days. Meanwhile, the interim report submitted by Vadodara Collector Gor also notes violation of agreement clauses by the vendor. The report notes that the agreement between VMC and Kotia Projects, signed on July 21, 2017, had a clause on lifeguards and life jackets and another clause on a separate jetty for boating from where visitors can mount and dismount their boats for fun boating, and another jetty solely for the lifeguard and their boats for surveillance and security. The clause had also mentioned that the separate jetty for the life guards and their boats would “serve independently without clashing with the visitors’ boat while attending to any emergency.” One of the probable causes of the incident, the interim report of the collector says, was due to the boat operator, who was not a trained operator, “picking speed while turning”. The report also notes that on the day of the incident, when teachers had objected to overloading and students being taken on the boat without life jackets, the boat operator had “said that, it is their routine work and not to worry and they will be safe”.
