The Madras High Court has quashed criminal prosecution initiated against the Managing Director of a private company for the death of a five-year-old girl when a compound wall collapsed on her because of the operation of an earthmover to lay undergone pipelines during heavy rain in Chennai on August 18, 2019.
Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan quashed the prosecution, intiated under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act of 1996, on the ground that the complaint must have been filed on or before November 18, 2019 and not on November 19, 2019.
The judge said the law required such a complaint to be filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) within three months of the incident and therefore the delay of even one day by the officials attached to the Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health would make it barred by limitation.
He said the Managing Director or the other directors alone could not be prosecuted without adding the company as an accused in such cases. On that ground, the complaint lodged against Rajiv Mittal of VA Tech Wabag Ltd. was unsustainable, he said.
The company had entered into a consortium agreement with IDE Technologies Ltd. and obtained a contract from Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) for building a tertiary treatment reverse osmosis plant with a capacity to treat 45 million litres daily at Koyambedu.
Underground pipelines were laid as part of the project to carry treated sewage water from Koyambedu to various industries. On August 18, 2019, an earthmover had been deployed by a sub-contractor of the company on Kundrathur-Porur Main Road to close the trenches dug for laying the pipelines.
Sleeping on pavement
During the operation of the earthmover, a four-foot-tall wall collapsed and fell on the girl, who was sleeping inside a tent on the pavement while her parents escaped with injuries. The operator of the earthmover and two others were arrested by the police for causing death by negligence.
Subsequently, a complaint was lodged under the 1996 Act against the MD of the private company since it was the responsibility of the employer to take safety measures to prevent accidents besides ensuring constant and adequate supervision of the construction work.
