A Delhi Court granted bail to Manuj Kathuria, an SUV driver and businessman, arrested in connection with the deaths of three civil services aspirants who drowned in the basement of an IAS coaching centre in the city’s Old Rajinder Nagar area.
District Judge Rajesh Kumar Goel granted bail to Kathuria, who was denied bail by a judicial magistrate yesterday. The three UPSC aspirants died in a flooded basement at Rau’s IAS coaching centre.
Kathuria is accused of forcing a water wave that breached the entrance of the coaching centre and resulted in the flooding of rainwater in the basement. Kathuria was driving his SUV car on the waterlogged road in front of the coaching centre.
The Delhi Police in its status report filed today, said that it is not invoking Section 105 (Punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of BNS at this stage against Kathuria. It added that the only offence invoked against him for now is Section 281 (Rash driving or riding on a public way) of BNS.
Apart from Kathuria, others arrested are four co-owners of the basement, namely Parvinder Singh, Harvinder Singh, Sarabjit Singh and Tajinder Singh. They were also denied bail by the judicial magistrate yesterday.
APP Atul Srivastava appeared for Delhi Police. Advocate Rakesh Malhotra, Advocate Bharat Malhotra, Advocate Sahil Ahuja, Advocate Kushal Malhotra and Advocate RK Tripathi appeared for Kathuria and Advocate Amit Chadha represented basement co-owners.
Earlier, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena has announced Rs 10 lakhs as compensation for the kin of three deceased civil services aspirants. The Lieutenant Governor further assured action against the erring officials of Delhi Fire Services, Delhi police and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) within 24 hours.
In a related development, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday heard a plea seeking a High Powered Committee to investigate the basement flooding incident and tore into the Delhi government’s freebie policies.