’01 quake case stuck,HC tells court to speed up

A criminal case registered in the case against the accused is still under investigation by police.

The HC order came recently on a petition moved by one of the victims who had sought action against the police and judicial officers responsible for the delay.

The petitioner,Nitinchandra Raval,had lost four of his family members when the building in the Satellite area crashed on January 26,2001.

According to Raval,police had initially registered a criminal case against builder Satish Shah,structural engineer Kirit Parikh,architect Yagnesh Vyas and civil engineer Sajnay Shah,who were involved in the construction of the building.

Subsequently,however,police filed a chargesheet only against Satish Shah and dropped others from the case while suppressing some key FSL evidence,Raval said.

When Raval came to know of this,he wrote a letter to the Director General of Police,who ordered further probe into the case,which was allowed by the concerned court.

“However,even after this,police filed chargesheet against only one of the remaining three accused. Moreover,they did not file action taken report along with the chargesheet,” Raval said.

Following this,Raval moved the HC seeking appropriate action against all those responsible for the delay.

After a lot of confusion over the existence of any action taken report,it became clear it is now placed before the concerned Chief Judicial Magistrate.

Raval said the HC has ordered the lower court to take a decision on the action taken report within six weeks and to file a compliance report. “The HC has now kept the petition for further hearing on September 26,” he added.