Rajkot: The victims of the Morbi suspension bridge collapse filed a petition with the Gujarat high court, seeking the quashing of an order of the Morbi trial court rejecting their plea for further investigation. Justice Sandeep N Bhatt issued notice to the state govt and scheduled the next hearing for Jan 6.
The victims' application in the trial court had sought further investigation, the adding of IPC Section 302 to the chargesheet and the arraignment of Ajanta Manufacturing Pvt Ltd. The trial court rejected this application in Sept, which the victims have challenged before the high court.
According to the petition, the Morbi court rejected the application stating that the petitioners had not undertaken any exercise in consultation with the state govt to obtain permission of the court to engage private advocates, and the trial court had not granted permission for this.
The trial court's order also stated that under Section 301 of CrPC, an advocate appointed by a private person can only give written arguments with the permission of the trial court, and such a private advocate cannot make submissions on behalf of the private persons.
Narendra Parmar filed the petition in the high court through advocates Rahul Sharma and Utkarsh Dave, submitting that the principal sessions judge of Morbi had erred in not appreciating that the petitioner's advocate was permitted by the previous principal sessions judge to make submissions. Once such permission was granted, it was not open for the principal sessions judge to take an alternative view. The petition also argued that the trial court did not go into the merits of the averment made by the petitioner's advocate after the above conclusion.
The petitioner has asked the HC for a writ or direction to quash and set aside the order of the trial court of Sept and to direct it to rehear the matter and pass an appropriate order. They also demanded a stay on proceedings in the trial court.
The prosecution had recently submitted the draft chargesheet at the request of the trial court, which is expected to frame charges as the first step to starting the trial.
Justice Sandeep N Bhatt, in his order on Tuesday, noted: "Considering the submissions made by the learned advocate for the applicant and also considering the averments made in this application, the matter requires consideration" and issued the notice to the respondents.