Ranchi: The Jharkhand high court on Thursday took suo motu cognizance of the death of a woman at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical Hospital in Jamshedpur earlier this week after an email was sent to Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan by a Ranchi-based advocate Anup Agarwal. The complaint in his mail said the woman, who sustained burn injuries, was ill-treated in the hospital, resulting in her death.
Agarwal in his email mentioned that the woman was set on fire by her husband on February 14 in Chakradharpur. On the same day, she was dropped at the hospital by a Good Samaritan with 91% burns. However, the hospital did not attend her for two days until a local media highlighted her plight. She ultimately succumbed to her injuries. The court treated the letter sent on email as a PIL and ordered the Jharkhand Legal Services Authority secretary to inquire into the matter and submit a report within one week.
In another case, the high court directed the commissioner of Ranchi Municipal Corporation to file an affidavit and inform about the number of lakes and ponds which existed in the state capital three decades back. A division bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad were hearing a PIL on the poor state of affairs of Ranchi Lake here on Thursday. The high court gave the commissioner two weeks’ time to furnish the details.
The PIL was filed by Khushboo Kataruka, who exposed the bad condition of Ranchi Lake. Kataruka in her petition said the lake is infested with water hyacinth and has become a sewage outlet of the municipal corporation. The petition also mentioned that several acres of land of the Dhurwa and Kanke dams have been encroached and buildings have been built on them.