HC: Morbi civic body guilty of dereliction

NEW DELHI: Officials of the Morbi municipality were guilty of dereliction of duty for allowing a pedestrian bridge to open and be crowded beyond capacity, leading to the deaths of 141 people when it eventually collapsed, the Gujarat high court said on Thursday.

The court, which was hearing the matter after having started proceedings on its own (or suo motu), also observed that the compensation to the families of the victims was “abysmally low”, and ordered the state to carry out an audit of all such bridges across the state.

In a series of stern observations, the court pulled up the Morbi municipality’s chief officer SV Zala for how the bridge was managed.

“The tenor of the letter sent by the Nagar Palika to the Ajanta (the company that operated and repaired the bridge) on January 19, 2021 would indicate

that the same (civic body) is concentrated more on the price of the tickets rather than the condition of the bridge,” the bench remarked.