In what can nail the BMC and other municipal officials, the Bombay High Court in a significant judgment pronounced on Saturday emphasised for holding such public officials "accountable" for the sudden collapse of buildings categorised as dangerous. The HC also held that the right to livelihood would also include the right to live in safe buildings and houses.
The order assumes significance as it provides for a slew of guidelines to be adhered to like conducting a periodical audit of the buildings by civic officials then categorising them if they are dangerous or dilapidated and also vacating the said structures as soon as possible to avoid loss of lives.
The order would pave way for booking officials for dereliction of their duties and stern action under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni passed a detailed order on Saturday, however, a copy of the same is yet to be made available. The judges stressed the need to completely eradicate the instances of people losing lives due to building collapses.
"People losing their lives in building collapses is required to be completely obliterated," Justice Kulkarni said, adding, "Right to livelihood includes the right to live in safe buildings and houses---in these matters of dilapidated and ruinous buildings, there is no scope whatsoever to accept the situation that the occupants live in uncertainty and risk their lives."
The judges further said that it is the owner of the building who has a constitutional obligation to ensure the safety of the building premises so that the lives of the occupants is not endangered by a likely collapse.
The court further stressed the need to have a proper mechanism wherein the concerned officers would conduct periodical audits as per law and buildings that are notified as ruinous can be vacated so that lives are not lost in case of the collapse of the building.
In case of failure, the judges said that "strong arms of law" are needed to punish such officials to ensure that the lives of innocent citizens are saved from "unscrupulous elements" of illegal constructions. They noted that such incidents have been occurring with people losing their lives because of the "connivance" between the civic and state officials.
Justice Kulkarni, while pronouncing the orders, said, "It is for such reason and with a sense of concern for our fellow citizens we have impressed the important role of the municipal and the state officers in the scheme of appearing to be extra-ordinarily vigilant and prevent building collapses."
The judges further slammed the municipal and public officials whose dereliction of official duties led to the loss of innocent lives.
"In the scheme of constitutional governance, it is not possible for us to assume that a public official howsoever, high or mighty or low, can remain without public accountability to people," the order reads.
"This would certainly require the court to strictly deal with such officials as the law would mandate the court to deal with them. They ought not to be under any impression that they can evade law with impunity," the bench added.
"The famous quote of Lord Atkin 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' - ought to be realised to be untrue and something of the past in its applicability in public governance," the judgment stated.
The bench also highlighted how some buildings become dangerous within a year of their construction due to the inferior quality of the construction material or for other reasons.
"Experience has shown that there are buildings of recent origin which were constructed with sub-standard material and on account of such construction were hazardous for occupation and ultimately collapsed," the bench noted.
