Court orders police to examine report on Jabalpur hospital fire

Bhopal/Jabalpur: A division bench of the MP high court on Thursday directed that the report of a committee, headed by the Jabalpur divisional commissioner, on the fire at New Life Multi-Speciality Hospital — which claimed eight lives — be handed over to police. The court also sought an action taken report (ATR) on hospitals in Jabalpur operating in violation of regulations. The directive came during a hearing on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Vishal Baghel, president of the Law Students' Association. The petition alleged that the hospital was granted permission to operate despite blatant violations of safety norms. When the fire broke out, patients and staff were unable to escape as there was no emergency exit. The petitioners further said during the Covid pandemic 65 new hospitals were given permission to start operation in Jabalpur and in majority of those hospitals, provisions of National Building Code and fire security rules have not been followed. Several hospitals came up on land, which has a distinctly different land use. The hospitals were granted permission to operate without physical verification. In the hearing of the petition on Thursday, the court was informed on behalf of the state government that action against hospitals run in contravention to norms is continuing and registration of 2 hospitals in Jabalpur has recently been cancelled. The petitioner referred to the report of the committee led by divisional commissioner into the fire incident in which Dr LN Patel and Dr Nishesh Chaudhary have been implicated for recommending registration of the hospital without proper physical verification of the hospital building. If they had presented a correct report, the hospital would not have got permission to operate and 8 persons would not have been killed in the fire incident.Following hearing of the petition, a bench of Chief Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Vivek Jain asked for handing over of the report to police and an ATR to be presented in the court on action taken against hospitals being run in violation to rules. Advocate Alok Bagrecha appeared in the case for the petitioner.