Ranipet tragedy: Bail denied to seven officials

 

“Considering the nature of the allegations made, stage of the investigation, magnitude of the offence alleged and loss of human lives, I am not inclined to grant them anticipatory bail,” said Justice P. Devadass while dismissing the petitions filed by Chockalingam Pillai, a special director, and P. Pugazhenthi, Sreenivasa Reddy, Chava Sreenivasa Rao, Saravana Karthik, R. Ramesh and B. Rajendran, all members of the monitoring committee in Ranipet Sidco Finished Leather Effluent Treatment Company Limited (RSFL Company).

 

The judge said RSFL Company was sponsored by 88 leather factories in and around Ranipet to treat the effluent emanating from their leather factories. A common effluent treatment tank has been constructed by the company. The tank was intended to treat hazardous waste. It has to be treated continuously mixing with certain chemical and lime, etc., so as to make them safe to others.

 

However, it was left unattended for a year. There were continuous instructions from the environment department officials to attend to this. But, it was not attended to. Further, an objectionable construction also has been made. There were materials to show that no proper consent has been obtained from the competent authorities to make the construction. The construction also led to this sad incident, the judge added.

 

The judge said Chokalingam Pillai was a special director, who has been given this assignment because of his experience and specialised knowledge in the field. Other petitioners were members of the monitoring committee to look after this matter. Initial investigations revealed that scant attention was paid to the tank and its collapse led to the loss of 10 human lives.

 

Unlike conventional crime, investigation of the present case requires specialised knowledge, involvement of scientific and field experts. Investigating agency was in the process of collecting materials. There were materials against the petitioners. In the facts and circumstances of the case, possibility of their interfering with the investigation and fleeing from justice cannot be ruled out, the judge added.

 

 

 

A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M.M. Sundresh, closed the PIL from I. Elangovan, a retired professor of Voorhees college, in Vellore district, which sought to quash the resolution of the Thiruvalluvar University granting two years’ time to teachers to complete the eligibility criteria, as per UGC norms, to get approval from the university.

 

The bench said the petitioner relies on the UGC regulations of minimum qualifications for such appointment to contend that the initial appointment itself could not have been made without the requisite qualification and, thus, there was no question of giving further time to obtain those qualifications.

 

Petitioner’s counsel S. Sathia Chandran had invited its attention to the orders passed earlier, which directed the university and UGC to look into the matter of non-qualified teachers being appointed to different posts. P.R. Gopinathan, counsel for UGC, submitted that a committee has been constituted to look into all the appointment and the matter was still in progress, as a number of records have to be brought to Chennai, where the scrutiny takes place.

 

He also submitted that he will ensure that the process of scrutiny was expedited. If any appointment did not meet the criteria of UGC regulations, necessary consequences will follow. “In view of the aforesaid facts, we are not inclined to entertain the PIL at this stage (leaving even the question of maintainability of PIL open), but would require the UGC and the university to carry on the task of scrutiny expeditiously,” the bench said.

 

In his petition, Elangovan contended that out of 5,000 assistant professors in the affiliated/approved colleges, only 25 per cent were qualified as per the UGC regulations. Hence, he filed three petitions and the court had issued directions to the UGC. In one petition, the University submitted that it has not appointed any unqualified teachers for 2014-15. But, it had appointed 200 unqualified assistant professors. In order to justify these appointments, it had passed the resolution dated September 9, 2014. Hence, he filed the present petition.