Bombay High Court refuses to quash FIR against civic staff booked after collapse of 100-year-old building

The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court recently rejected pleas to quash a criminal case against civic staff and a flat owner for their alleged lapses in a case where a dilapidated, 100-year-old building collapsed, claiming the lives of five labourers [Rahul Jain v. State of Maharashtra and connected petitions]..A division bench of Justices Vinay Joshi and MW Chandwani was also anguished at how no one appeared to be bothered about human life in such cases. Despite having powers, civic officials had not taken strict forcible measures that could have saved lives in this case, the Court noted..“We express our deep pain as to how no one is bothering about human life. When the structure is dangerous strict enforcement of the provisions of law is expected from every quarter. Instances are not few that despite vesting of vast powers, strict forcible measures have not been taken resulting into loss of lives. We may bent upon to think that violation of laws cannot take place without the active connivance. Nebulous approach to such important facets touching to the lives of the citizens is a matter of concern," the Court observed in its January 11 order..The petitioners in this case included Rahul Jain, the owner of two floors in the building, and two civic officials from the Amravati Municipal Corporation. The petitioners had urged the Court to quash the case filed against them following the building collapse, in which they had been booked under Sections 304A (causing death by negligence) and 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).The Amravati civic body informed the Court that it had issued multiple demolition notices since 2019 since the building structure was so dilapidated that it required immediate demolition (C1 category).Meanwhile, Jain (flat owner) claimed that he had demolished his floors in the building on July 23, 2022. Notably, the ground floor, which had several shops owned by various persons, of the building had not been demolished. One of the shop owners on the ground floor had started some repair work in his shop which resulted in the collapsing of the entire structure on October 30, 2022. This collapse led to the death of five workers in the debris. A criminal case was subsequently registered against the shop owner on the ground floor as well. During the investigation, corporation officer Suhas Chauhan, sectional engineer Ajay Vinchurkar and Rahul Jain were added as accused persons. Aggrieved by this, the three (applicants) approached the High Court with pleas to quash the case against them. .The corporation employees claimed they had no role to play in the mishap, while Jain claimed that he had been falsely implicated in the case as he had already demolished the two floors he owned..The Court observed that the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act gave powers to the municipal officers to forcibly evict occupants and get a building vacated in special circumstances.“The plain, duty and obligation is to ensure that dangerous structures which are in ruinous state or likely to fall down are removed if they are in municipal limits. If the laws are not enforced, the result can only be total lawlessness," the Court added.The Court deduced from the evidence before it that for three years, the corporation only issued notices for the demolition of the building and did nothing more than that.The Court also noted that since the corporation officers had omitted from acting on its notices, there had been a breach of duty. Legal consequences were required to follow, the Court opined. The Court also found it difficult to form a prima facie opinion against the applicants in the absence of a chargesheet..As against the flat owner Jain, the Court found that he had kept the demolition debris lying on the floor, which could have joined the cause for the collapse..Given these findings, the Court rejected the petitions filed by all three accused applicants. The Court, however, protected the accused from arrest for four weeks so that they may challenge the order in appeal, if they wished to do so. .Senior Advocate AS Mardikar with advocates FT Mirza, Shaml J. Kadu and Ved Deshpande appeared for the accused.Additional public prosecutor Anup Badar appeared for the State of Maharashtra..[Read order]