SC to hear case on 3 civil service aspirants' deaths in flooded Delhi coaching centre

Supreme Court/ File Photo

The Supreme Court will hear a case on Monday relating to the unfortunate deaths of three civil service aspirants who drowned at a Delhi coaching institution in July as a result of basement flooding.

On July 27, three UPSC aspirants - Shreya Yadav (25) from Uttar Pradesh, Tanya Soni (25) from Telangana, and Nevin Delvin (24) from Kerala - died in the basement library of Rau's IAS Study Circle in the Old Rajinder Nagar area, which had been swamped due to heavy rain.

According to the Supreme Court's subject list for October 21, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan will hear the matter.

On September 20, the Supreme Court asked a committee constituted by the Union government to investigate the incident and give an interim report outlining steps to prevent similar incidents in the future. The court also directed the governments of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi to notify it of any policy, legislative, or administrative measures made to prevent such disasters.

The court highlighted the importance of implementing uniform safeguards throughout the National Capital Region (NCR) to prevent instances like the one at Old Rajinder Nagar from occurring again.

Attorney General R Venkataramani informed the court that the Centre had set up a high-level committee to probe the event. The group was entrusted with reviewing legislative, policy, and administrative interventions and soliciting feedback from all stakeholders before making recommendations.

The Supreme Court stated that its investigation of the issue would not be restricted to this instance, but would extend throughout India to avoid similar incidents from occurring elsewhere.

On August 5, the court voiced worry that coaching facilities had become "death traps," risking students' lives. This statement was made during a hearing on a suit filed by an association of tutoring centres contesting a Delhi High Court ruling dated December 2023. The high court had directed the city's fire services and civic officials to visit all coaching institutions to ensure that fire safety standards were followed.

In the same ruling, the high court shifted the inquiry into the fatalities from the Delhi Police to the Central Bureau of inquiry (CBI) to ensure public trust in the investigation.