Metro pillar collapse case: 10 DMRC officials granted bail

The Delhi police had indicted 24 persons,including 11 DMRC officials,in its charge sheet filed on July 5.

The two who were denied bail were DMRC official Vivek Prakash Srivastava and Amrik Singh of Gammon India Ltd,who had failed to appear before the court.

Srivastava’s counsel told the court that his client had not appeared due to non-serving of summons to him. The court issued fresh summons and asked him to appear before it on the next date of hearing.

Amrik Singh had sought exemption,through his counsel,from personal appearance saying he was not in the city. Fixing August 18 as the next date of hearing in the case,the court asked Singh to appear before it and file his bail application.

The Delhi police,meanwhile,submitted CDs of voluminous documents in pursuance of a high court circular,which had stated that e-copy of bulky documents should be filed in the court.

The counsel for all the accused opposed the Crime Branch’s way of filing documents in the court and sought directions to provide them with its hard copies.

ACMM Sharma,however,rejected the plea for hard copy saying “in view of the e-challan and e-filing as per the high court notification,this court cannot direct the probe agency to give a hard copy to the accused.”

Meanwhile,it directed the Crime Branch to supply copies of maps,designs and coloured photos to the accused counsel on the next date of hearing.

After 3 years of probe into the 2009 Zamrudpur metro pillar collapse incident,the Delhi police had filed its charge sheet on July 5 charging 24 persons,including 11 senior DMRC officials,for negligence.

Those charge-sheeted in the 6,104-page document,include DMRC’s erstwhile Chief Engineer (Design) Rajan Kataria,its present Chief Engineer (Tenders) Subodh Kumar Gupta,who was the chief project officer at the mishap site,besides Director (Design) Rajiv Ahujan of Arch Consultancy and Pradeep Gupta of Gammon India Ltd.

The Crime Branch charge sheet has held DMRC,Gammon India Ltd and Arch consultancy responsible for causing deaths by approving a “faulty design”.

The charge sheet had indicted them for allegedly causing deaths and hurts by negligence,saying “there is sufficient evidence or record on file that the work was planned,carried out and continued in a negligent manner and endangering the human lives.”

On July 12,2009,an under-construction girder on the Central Secretariat-Badarpur Metro line had collapsed killing eight people and injuring 12 workers at the project site.

The Delhi Metro had attributed the accident to a “problem in the design” of the pillar,claiming they “were trying to rectify it.”

Taking cognisance of the charge sheet,the court had issued summons to all the accused for July 23.