The Supreme Court agreed to hear on January 3 a writ petition seeking urgent measures to rescue 15 miners trapped inside a rat-hole mine in Meghalaya.
Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Wednesday said the petition, which was orally mentioned by senior advocate Anand Grover for petitioner Aditya N. Prasad, will be listed on Thursday even as a multi-agency rescue operation is underway in the north-eastern State to locate and rescue the miners.
Besides seeking for the framing of a standard operating procedure for rescue in mines and similar situations, the petition said the court should order the government to utilise the services of the expert technical arms of the Forces in the rescue operation immediately.
The petition has also asked for the requisitioning of high capacity pumps, including the ones built by the Kirloskar Brothers Ltd., which were offered to the Royal Thai government in June/July 2018 during the cave rescue of the school boys and their teacher.
The petition urged the court to order Coal India Ltd. to provide necessary technical know-how, equipment and guidance immediately at the rescue site.
The miners were trapped on December 13 when water from Lytein river flooded the mine.