Delhi High Court today said that no untoward incident should occur in any school in future like the ones in which the two kids died after falling into water tanks of their respective institutions here even as it sought suggestions to frame guidelines to prevent such incidents.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath further said the authorities concerned should give suggestions to the court so that it can give an order to prevent such kind of incident.

“We would like to invite suggestions from the authorities concerned, so that on basis of which a court direction can be given to avoid such incidents in future,” the judge said.

It also said that on basis of the suggestion it will make an order, which has to be complied by all the schools of the national capital, so that no further untoward incident happen with the children of schools in future.

The court’s direction came during hearing of a PIL by Col (retd.) Devinder Sehrawat, MLA from Bijwasan constituency, through advocate Kamlesh Kumar Mishra, who has sought judicial inquiry into the deaths of the children and also called for disaster management assessment of all schools here.

Divyansh Kakrora, a six-year-old Class I student of Ryan International School in Vasant Kunj here died after falling in a tank in his school on January 30.

In a similar incident on January 27, five-year-old Ankit died after falling into an open septic tank in an MCD school in Kapashera area of south Delhi.

Sehrawat also sought direction for payment of Rs 50 lakh each as compensation to families of the children, which was complied by the Delhi government.

The plea urged that urgent steps be taken to “ensure that such ghastly incidents do not reoccur” in future.

Meanwhile, Delhi police informed the court that it was the case of negligence and the people have been arrested.

It, however, told the court that the postmortem reports of two boys can not be made public as it can harm the probe into the case.

Haryana government today told the Supreme Court that the army has taken control over all the three points from where water is supplied to Delhi and it has resumed supplying approximately 1200 cusec water to the national capital.

Taking note of the submission, a bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice U U Lalit disposed of the PIL, filed by Delhi Jal Board, that had sought a direction for ensuring uninterrupted supply of water which was hit owing to violent Jat quota stir in Haryana.

The counsel for Haryana said that though Munak Regulator and barrages at Khubru and Mandora village in the state had been hit by the violence, but engineers and others are working to to get back to the earlier situation so that the water supply becomes normal.

The repairing of damaged Munak canal, which supplies water to Dwarka here, may take a fortnight, he said adding that efforts are on get it done as early as possible.

The bench rejected the submission of Haryana that Delhi government be asked to contribute in the repair work.

“Why should Delhi pay for it. Your people damaged them then you tell, who will pay for them?,” the bench, which later asked both governments to co-operarate and resolve, said during the hearing.

The bench, while disposing of DJB’s PIL, said that it was not an “adversarial” litigation and asked Haryana government to take efforts to ensure resumption of normal and usual supply of water to Delhi.

“We hope and trust that the Governments of Haryana and NCT of Delhi co-operate with each other and make a joint effort to ensure supply of water to Delhi at the earliest to avoid any inconvenience to the people living in Delhi. We are indeed happy to note that there is no adversarial element in this litigation as both the Governments appear to be willing to cooperate with each other in every respect,” it said.

Earlier, the court had asked the Centre to take “steps to ensure that the proper security is provided to the three barrages at Munak, Mandora and Khubru to prevent any further mischief affecting supply of water to Delhi at the three points.PTI

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear tomorrow a plea seeking contempt action against jailed JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, former DU lecturer SAR Gilani and few others on the ground that they allegedly termed the execution of Afzal Guru as “judicial killing”.

A bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justices R Banumathi and U U Lalit fixed the contempt plea for hearing on Monday when the plea alleged that by terming the execution as “judicial killing”, Kumar and others have committed contempt of the court which had delivered the verdict.

The plea, filed by lawyer Vineet Dhanda, refers to the apex court verdict, pronounced on August 4, 2005 in the case, by which Guru was handed down death penalty for being part of the conspiracy in the attack on Parliament.

“The so-called cultural event’s pamphlets spoke about the judicial killing of Afzal Guru. The main topic of the ‘cultural event’ organised was judicial killing of Afzal Guru which outright tantamount to criminal contempt as the respondents are calling the judges of the apex court as killers who have been projected to have committed judicial killing of Afzal Guru,” the plea said.

“Afzal and Yakub Memon were no martyrs as projected by the group of students of JNU. The Supreme Court has already passed a detailed judgement in both cases after giving due consideration as per law after going through the evidence,” it further said.

Pamphlets were allegedly distributed during the “so- called” cultural event held at JNU on February 9 that termed death sentence to Guru and Maqbool Bhatt as “judicial killing”, the plea said.

The students, who organised the event, also used social media platforms and “tarnished” the image of Supreme Court, it alleged.

Besides Kanhaiya and Gilani, the plea has sought contempt action against Umar Khalid, Lenin Kumar, Anirban Bhattacharya, Shehla Rashid Shora and Ali Javed.

A man and four other persons, accused of killing his father, have been acquitted by a Delhi court which said suspicion however strong cannot take the place of proof.

Additional Sessions Judge Manoj Jain let off all the five accused, including the son of the deceased, a north-west Delhi resident, of the charge of committing the murder in 2008, saying the police should not have sent the accused for trial on the basis of speculation alone.

“Suspicion, howsoever strong it may be, cannot take the place of proof and, therefore, investigating agency was not right in sending up the accused for trial on the basis of speculation alone,” the judge observed.

The court said that the prosecution has not been able to prove its case as it failed to produce a witness who might have seen accused committing the murder in question.

“There is no other fact or circumstance which may show their involvement and complicity,” the court said, while adding, “The police has no business to take away the valuable fundamental right of personal liberty.”

It also said, “It is only on the basis of ‘inadmissible’ disclosure statements that the investigating agency had tried to weave the sequence of events.”

According to the prosecution, on January 11, 2008, a man was found shot dead during his routine morning walk.

It had said that the police had closed the report as it remained a blind case for almost two years and it was the Crime Branch which, acting on a tip-off, nabbed all the accused.

The Crime Branch had filed the charge sheet based on the disclosure statements by the accused, alleging that due to the ill-treatment by the father, his son conspired to kill him.

The National Green Tribunal today rapped the civic authorities in Ghaziabad for dumping of solid waste and disposal of sewage in Sai Upvan, the 200 acre forest area in the city.

The green panel also directed the Ghaziabad municipal commissioner to appear before it and apprise it about the actual condition there.

“It is seen from the photographs that the area where the board of Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam is placed is full of sewage. It is clear that nothing was done by the Nigam despite directions by the Tribunal.

“Even it has not filed reply in the case…In such circumstances we direct municipal commissioner of Nigam to be present before us on Feb 26,” a bench headed by Justice M S Nambiar said.

The direction came in the wake of a plea filed by Society for Protection of Environment and Biodiversity (SPENBIO) and Ghaziabad resident Sushil Raghav seeking demolition of unauthorised and illegal structures located in green belts of the city.

Advocate Rahul Choudhary, appearing for the petitioners, told the bench that the area, which was marked as city forest in Ghaziabad’s master plan 2021 was being damaged by felling of trees and dumping of garbage.

The city forest is now filled with sewage, which has completely destroyed the area, he said.

“Around 6 lakh trees were planted in the city forest area but as of today very less trees have survived. Moreover, even after several complaints to the authorities, no action has been taken and the city forest is converted into pool of sewage,” Rahul said.

During the hearing, the counsel for Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam told the bench that the city forest area does not fall under it and he would file a detailed reply in the matter.

On the last date of hearing, the tribunal had stayed construction of a city club in green belt area in Ghaziabad.