In what can nail the BMC and other municipal officials, the Bombay High Court in a significant judgment pronounced on Saturday emphasised for holding public officials “accountable” for the sudden collapse of buildings categorised as dangerous. The HC also held that the right to livelihood would also include the right to live in safe buildings and houses.
The order assumes significance as it provides a slew of guidelines to be adhered to, like conducting periodical audit of the buildings by civic officials, categorising them if they are dangerous or dilapidated and also vacating the said structures as soon as possible to avoid loss of lives.
The order would pave the way for booking officials for dereliction of their duties and stern action under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni passed a detailed order on Saturday. However, a copy of the same is yet to be made available. The judges stressed on the need to completely eradicate the instances of people losing lives due to building collapses.
The judges further said the owner of the building has a constitutional obligation to ensure safety of the building premises so that lives of the occupants are not endangered by a likely collapse.
The court further stressed on the need to have a proper mechanism, wherein officers would conduct periodic audits as per law, and buildings that are notified as ruinous can be vacated.
In case of failure, the judges said that “strong arms of law” are needed to punish such officials to ensure that the lives of innocent citizens are saved from “unscrupulous elements” of illegal constructions. They noted that such incidents have been occurring with people losing their lives because of the “connivance” between the civic and state officials.
Justice Kulkarni while pronouncing the orders, said, “…with a sense of concern for our fellow citizens, we have impressed the important role of the municipal and the state officers in the scheme of appearing to be extra-ordinarily vigilant...”
The judges further slammed the municipal and public officials whose dereliction of official duties led to loss of innocent lives. The order reads, “In the scheme of constitutional governance, it is not possible for us to assume that a public official, however high or mighty or low, can remain without public accountability to people.”
“The famous quote of Lord Atkin ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ ought to be realised to be untrue and something of the past in its applicability in public governance,” the judgment stated.
The Bench also highlighted how some buildings become dangerous within a year of its construction due to the inferior quality of the construction material or for other reasons. “Experience has shown that there are buildings of recent origin which were constructed with sub-standard material and on account of such construction were hazardous for occupation and ultimately collapsed,” the Bench noted.
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