Gujarat High Court rejects state govt's affidavit on Rajkot fire tragedy citing lack of details

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court on Friday rejected an affidavit filed by the state government in connection with the Rajkot game zone fire that claimed 27 lives, saying it was "fed up" with "evasive" replies.

A division bench of high court Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi said the affidavit filed by the government does have any details about the issues raised in the previous order.

After being pulled up by the court, Advocate General Kamal Trivedi withdrew the affidavit and gave assurance that a new and "simple" affidavit will be filed in the next hearing to be held after two weeks.

The court was hearing a suo motu PIL it had taken up on May 26 after the fire incident that occurred the previous day in Rajkot city.

"The affidavit is hereby rejected as withdrawn. New affidavit to be filed by the Rajkot Municipal Commissioner on the observation made by this court in its previous order dated August 23. Next hearing on September 27," the chief justice said in her order.

In its August 23 order, the bench had noted that the high court had issued some directions related to fire safety while hearing another PIL in 2020 and the then Municipal Commissioner of Rajkot, through an affidavit in 2022 "had affirmed on oath that he would comply with the directions issued by this court from time to time".

In that order, the court directed the civic bodies to ensure that the fire prevention and life safety measures are undertaken and implemented forthwith and the Fire Prevention and Protection Systems (FPPS) are installed in all the buildings in the state.

The civic bodies were also directed to grant Occupancy Certificate to the occupants and permit occupation of the building only after consulting the concerned designated authority, after requisite inspection of the building, so as to ensure that necessary requirements for the fire protection have been fulfilled, the past order mentioned.

The bench also asked why the erring officials, including the Municipal Commissioner, should not be held liable to pay compensation to the victims "from their own pocket".

When the matter was taken up for hearing on Friday, the HC chief justice objected to the state government's affidavit, saying it does have any details about the issues raised in the previous order.

"The Municipal Commissioner can not get away by saying he was not aware (of the illegal construction of the game zone). It becomes the duty of the commissioner, when he gives an affidavit in the court (in 2022), to ensure that Building Utilisation permission are given in accordance with the law and he needs to supervise in case of delegation," the chief justice said.

Kamal Trivedi tried to reason with the bench saying the affidavit will give an idea about the working of a municipal body.

"The latest affidavit says how the municipal corporation works. It shows that he (commissioner) was supervising. Just trying to convey that there was no negligence on my part," he said.

On this, the bench said the matter on hand is about the fire incident, not about how a municipal corporation works.

"Are you justifying your actions like this? We are not concerned about the entire system. We asked you to file only the reply. You just need to give an answer to our observations mentioned in the past order. Please stop justification. We are fed up with these evasive affidavits of the officers. We are not accepting this affidavit," said the chief justice.

"No one can be permitted to bypass the court order and then get away by saying I had delegated the duties to subordinates so I am innocent. He has to own the responsibility. He should submit an affidavit of apology at least to this court. Let him answer why he should not be held responsible for dereliction of duty," the bench said.