Case against Bharat Mala staff after man loses son in mishap

Jodhpur: Negligence in putting up warning signs on the roads under construction by the officials of Bharat Mala Project cost them dear. A man has filed a case against them here after his son lost his life to the alleged negligence of the project officials.

The case has been filed at the Balesar police station of Jodhpur under Sections 336, 337 and 304A of IPC, which have the provision of jail sentence from 3 months to 2 years. One Rajnish Gupta, a businessman from Jodhpur and son of a retired judge NP Gupta, had met with an accident on Saturday afternoon near village Dhandhania under Balesar police station of Jodhpur.

“He was returning from Jaisalmer along with one person on Saturday in a personal vehicle. His vehicle overturned at one sharp turn in Dhandhania, on a road which is under-construction under the ambitious Bharat Mala Project,” said an official.

He succumbed to injuries while in transit to the hospital, while the other person has been undergoing treatment in a hospital in Jodhpur. Two days after the incident, his father filed a case against the officials of the project stating that it was the negligence of the project officials in putting up adequate information/signs for the vehicle drivers about the condition of the road, which caused the accident and his son could not know what was lying ahead.

He said that neither at the accident spot nor at any spot of the project, has any warning signs been put up, alerting the drivers so that they could act accordingly in time to avoid mishaps. “Even the sharp turn where the accident took place did not have any warning sign. Due to this negligence of the project officials, my son met with the accident and died,” said Gupta.

This is said to be one of the rare cases of a person filing a case against the project officials over such an accident, holding them responsible for the mishap.