MUMBAI: A PIL has been filed in the Bombay High Court seeking that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) be booked for causing death due to negligence after a doctor slipped into an open manhole while wading through water-logged streets in the city.
The body of Dr. Deepak Amarapukar, who had gone missing on Tuesday following heavy rains in the megapolis, was today recovered from a nullah near the Coast Guard office in central Mumbai's Worli, police said.
Amrapurkar was gastroenterologist at the city-based Bombay hospital.
The public interest litigation, filed by the Federation of Retail Traders Welfare Association Mumbai, also sought steps to ensure that such an incident is not repeated.
It claims that its purpose is to "highlight and bring to the court's notice the death of Dr. Amrapurkar, which was caused due to a gross negligence on part of BMC."
As per the plea, filed through advocate Ashish Mehta, in leaving the manhole open, and in failing to barricade the manhole, or put any warning signs around it, the civic body exposed "the public at large to danger," and "deprived Dr. Amrapurkar of his life".
Besides the BMC, the plea has the chief minister, the state government, the police commissioner, and the chief engineers, sewage operation and storm water drain departments as parties in the case.
It has urged the court to direct the police to book the civic body BMC "under section 304-A of the IPC that deals with causing death by negligence".
The plea also seeks that the chief minister be directed to identify the BMC officers responsible for the negligence, and "to hold the officials concerned accountable for Dr. Amrapurkar’s death".
It also urged the court to constitute "an advisory committee of ex-bureaucrats and technocrats for carrying out an inspection of all manholes in the city and to help form a policy to avoid such fatal incidents in future".
"It is apparent that only on account of the gross negligence on the part of BMC and its officers, the victim was deprived of his life," the PIL alleged
There were no sign boards, no barricading near the manhole cautioning the public at large about the prevailing danger. It was the legal duty of the BMC and the state to protect and safeguard such areas where work in progress after taking into consideration the locality, the density of the population, the frequency of the visitors, etc, it said.
"The corporation and the state are under a legal obligation to take care of, and protect all citizens from accidents," the plea contended.
The petitioner will mention the plea before a bench led by Chief Justice Manjula Chellur on Friday.