HC seeks action plan to prevent future disasters

Prayagraj: Hearing a PIL in the techie death case, the Allahabad high court on Friday directed NDRF, SDRF, police, local administration, Noida Authority, and fire department to submit suggestions to chalk out an action plan to prevent such tragedies in the future.Yuvraj Mehta, 27, had drowned after his car fell into a water-filled trench at an undeveloped site in Sector 150, Noida, on the intervening night of Jan 16 and 17. The incident had triggered public outrage, protests by locals and allegations of negligence against developers and the Noida Authority. The trench had developed due to inadequate stormwater management and the site had remained undeveloped under Wiztown Planners' control for years.Hearing the case, a division bench comprising Justices Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Kunal Ravi Singh also asked the counsel appearing for NDRF and SDRF to provide details about the minimum time required for readiness if they received any information about a disaster. Accordingly, the court fixed Apr 1 for the next hearing.At one stage on Mar 17, the court said, "We have also perused the counter affidavit filed by the Noida Authority. Even though notices were issued to various erring builders on Feb 6 to rectify the defects within three days, counter affidavit is silent with regard to what remedial steps were taken and whether Noida Authority had actually verified the remedial steps taken. Furthermore, the affidavit does not mention whether there is any nodal officer in Noida nominated to deal with emergency situations and to co-ordinate between various agencies in such emergencies.""The affidavit is also silent as to who was the officer of Noida authority, who had reached the spot, when the incident was being broadcast live. We expect that an affidavit indicating the above should be filed by the next date of hearting," the court said.