'In process of taking over probe': CBI on Delhi IAS coaching centre deaths
On August 2, the Delhi high court transferred the probe from the city police to the central agency.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is in the process of taking over the probe into the July 27 mishap at a coaching institute in Delhi's Old Rajender Nagar, the central agency informed a city court on Wednesday.
“We have not registered any FIR in the case and the process of taking over the probe from the Delhi Police is going on,” the CBI counsel told Rouse Avenue Court.
The development came after the court sought CBI's response on the bail pleas moved by the four accused who own the building premises from where Rau's IAS Study Circle operates. On the evening of July 27, following days of heavy rain in the nationcal capital, the building's basement, which served as the IAS coaching centre's library, got waterlogged, resulting in death of three aspirants.
The incident triggered massive protests by IAS aspirants studying in various coaching institutes in the city. On August 2, the Delhi high court transferred the probe from the police to CBI, with both the police and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) getting an earful from the bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela.
The matter will now be taken up on Friday.
Delhi Police had arrested as many as seven people, including the son and three relatives of Amarjeet, the owner of the building, after the incident. The other three were Abhishek Gupta and Deshpal Singh, the CEO and coordinator, respectively, of the institute, and Manuj Kathuria, a businessman who was seen on a video driving his Gurkha SUV through the street that was flooded by rainwater, causing the water to swell and breach the gates of the three-storey building and inundate the basement.
Kathuria was granted bail by the Tis Hazari court, which said that the police arrested him in their ‘over-enthusiasm.’