RailEnquiry

A Delhi court has asked the city police to supply copies of the charge sheet and documents, running into 6,104 pages, to 24 accused in the 2009 Metro pillar collapse case.Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Lokesh Kumar Sharma asked the crime branch of Delhi Police to supplysix sets of hard copies of the charge sheet to the lawyers, representing all the 24 accused in the case. The court also asked police to give soft copies of probe report to all accused and took strong note of the voluminous charge sheet saying that it seemed that the Crime Branch was following CBI which is accustomed to filing bulky reports."On the next date of hearing (that is September 29), you (crime branch) bring marked CDs, so that defence lawyers do not waste time in hunting for contents ...," the court said.So far, police has provided hard copies of the charge sheet to lawyers representing officials of DMRC, Gammon India Ltd and Arch Consultancy.The Crime Branch has charge sheeted 11 DMRC officials and 13 others for allegedly being negligent in construction of a Metro pillar at Zamrudpur here which collapsed in 2009 claiming eight lives.The police had earlier said that it would be filing soft copies of the charge sheet in pursuance of the Delhi High Court's direction that e-copies of bulky documents be filed in courts.The contention has been opposed by the lawyers of the accused who are seeking the direction that they be provided with the hard copies of the charge sheet.

The court had earlier granted bail to 22 accused. The 23rd accused, Amrik Singh of Gammon India Ltd, who did not appear on the earlier date, was granted bail on August 18 on a personal bond of Rs. 10,000 each with one surety of like amount.

Vivek Prakash Srivastava of DMRC is now the only accused who is yet to get bail.

After a three year-long probe, the Delhi Police had filed the charge sheet on July 5 against 24 persons, including 11 DMRC officials and had accused them of being negligent in constructing the pillar.

The charge sheet named DMRC's ex-chief engineer (design) Rajan Kataria, its present chief engineer (tenders) Subodh Kumar Gupta, who was the chief project officer at the mishap site, besides Director (Design) Rajiv Ahuja of Arch Consultancy and Pradeep Gupta of Gammon India Ltd.

It also held DMRC, Gammon India Ltd and Arch consultancy responsible for causing deaths by approving a "faulty design".

On July 12, 2009, an under-construction girder on the Central Secretariat-Badarpur Metro line had collapsed killing eight people and injuring 12 workers at the project site in Zamrudpur.

The Delhi Metro had attributed the accident to a "problem in the design" of the pillar, claiming they "were trying to rectify it."