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Hotel fire: Constitute panel to ensure all responsible are held accountable, HC tells chief secy
The court also rejected the writ petition of chief fire officer (CFO), challenging his suspension by the state government in wake of the blaze
LUCKNOW The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court on Wednesday directed UP chief secretary to constitute a high power committee to ensure that all those responsible for the September 5 Levana Suites fire incident, in which four people had died, are held accountable.
The court also rejected the writ petition of chief fire officer (CFO), challenging his suspension by the state government in wake of the blaze.
The state government had suspended chief fire officer, Vijay Kumar Singh, on September 10 as part of the probe against those allegedly responsible for the incident.
The court ordered the chief secretary to constitute a high power committee comprising two additional chief secretaries and director general of police to enforce and scrutinize the report of the probe committee constituted by the state government (committee of divisional commissioner and commissioner of police). This committee had submitted its report on September 9.
The court added that the committee must ensure that all those responsible for the incident, including those in-charge of various licensing authorities, are held accountable for the incident.
A single-judge bench of Justice Alok Mathur on Wednesday observed: “Argument of the petitioner that the decision of initiating disciplinary proceedings against the petitioner and placing him under suspension is arbitrary and illegal without there being any material in this regard, is not made out and is consequently rejected.”
“There is sufficient material as borne out from the report of the committee dated 09/09/2022 to proceed against the petitioner, hence the writ petition is accordingly dismissed,” added the court.
“The inquiry shall proceed against the petitioner in accordance with law and the inquiry officer shall not be influenced or guided by any of the observations made by this court,” observed the court.
The state government had constituted a committee comprising divisional commissioner and commissioner of police, Lucknow, to probe the incident. This committee submitted its report to the government on September 9 pointing out those responsible for the incident.
DIG’S REPORT UNSATISFACTORY
The court also took serious note of the departmental probe conducted by the fire department in which DIG (fire) had indicated that there was no fault of the department in the incident. It pointed that the report was highly unsatisfactory and cannot be called an inquiry report. The court also pointed out glaring lapses in the report.
“This court is also of the considered view that the report of DIG (fire) is lacking in material particulars, which ought to be part of any inquiry report and hence due to its infirmities should be ignored as being unactionable,” said the court.
