The co-owners of the Old Rajinder Nagar coaching centre basement where three Civil Service aspirants drowned last month, have petitioned the Delhi High Court (HC) for release in the criminal case against them. The co-owners are currently in jail.
They claimed that they were only the landlords of the basement, which was rented to the coaching centre, and hence had no involvement in the incident.
The matter is expected to be heard this week, reports PTI.
To recall, three Civil Service aspirants, Shreya Yadav of Uttar Pradesh, Tanya Soni of Telangana, and Nevin Delvin of Kerala, died on the evening of July 27 when the basement of the building of Rau's IAS Study Circle flooded due to heavy rain in central Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar.
The students of the institute had been using the basement as a library.
A sessions judge had dismissed bail applications filed by the basement's co-owners, Parvinder Singh, Tajinder Singh, Harvinder Singh, and Sarbjit Singh on August 23, stating that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe was still in its early stages and that their exact responsibilities needed to be determined.
The Delhi High Court moved the case from the Delhi Police to the CBI for investigation under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which includes section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).
In the application filed in the high court, one of the co-owners claimed that the trial court, in denying them bail, failed to consider that the co-owners had leased the basement and third floor of the building to run the coaching centre, an activity permitted by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) rules and that they had no intention of committing such an offence or knowledge of it.
"The applicant is merely the landlord and does not play any role whatsoever in the management or day-to-day business of the tenants. The applicant had let out the property on rental basis to RAU'S IAS STUDY CIRCLE vide lease deed dated 05.01.2022 for a period of 9 years commencing from 01.01.2022," said the plea.
It added, “The subject property was given on lease to Mr Abhishek Kumar Gupta vide lease dated 05.01.2022 for running a coaching centre. It is pertinent to mention that as per the lease deed, the lessee is responsible for procuring necessary permissions from local authorities like DDA, MCD and other local authorities for running the coaching centre within permissible parameters."
