Coaching centre deaths: Supreme Court stays HC's order for deposit of Rs 5 crore corpus by owner for interim bail

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has stayed the Delhi High Court's order to deposit Rs 5 crore for a corpus as condition for interim bail to the owners of the premises let out to run a coaching centre where three civil services aspirants had died here due to drowning after heavy rains.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan suspended the condition imposed for paying the sum but restrained the petitioner Parvinder Singh and others from creating any third party right or any encumbrance in respect of the property at Old Rajender Nagar here, "which was allegedly being misused to run the Coaching Centre".

After hearing senior advocate Sidharth Luthra for the petitioners, the court issued notice to the CBI and fixed the matter for consideration on December 20, 2024.

The petitioners were aggrieved with the High Court's order of September 13, 2024, which, they contended, directed them to deposit an amount of Rs 5 crore in one go or in instalments till November 30, 2024 with Red Cross Society without any just reasoning.

The petitioners stated they bought the property from the erstwhile owner on December 29, 2021 in a fully constructed condition. Subsequently, the said property was given on lease to Abhishek Kumar Gupta on January 05, 2022.

The petitioner was granted a fire safety certificate also on July 09, 2024 after inspection.

However, after the incident related to death of three students on July 20, 2024, the FIR was registered.

The petitioner was not named as an accused in the FIR. However, upon his surrender, the petitioner was arrested on July 28, 2024, and remained in custody till grant of interim bail on September 13.

The High Court, in its order, has said allegations are that the petitioners let out the-basement for commercial gain and in such cases the message should go loud and clear that courts are sensitive to respond to such situations.

"Hence, in such cases where commercial ventures were run in violation of norms/law, the accused persons may be asked to contribute for the cause of creation of corpus to meet such situations," the court had said, directing for deposit of Rs 5 Cr, to be used for the student welfare and for the purpose of streamlining the functioning of coaching centres in Delhi.

The HC had also said the Lieutenant Governor may also take decision to provide compensation to the families of the deceased students.