Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has postponed the hearing to August 10 in the bail plea of Jaysukh Patel, managing director of Oreva Group, in the case pertaining to last year's suspension bridge collapse that killed 135 persons.
The trial court and sessions court have already rejected Jaysukh Patel's regular bail earlier this year. Oreva Group was responsible for the operation and maintenance of the British-era suspension bridge that collapsed on October 30 last year, killing 135 and leaving 56 others grievously injured.
Until now, the High Court has granted bail to a total of 6 accused in the case. The four security guards and two clerks have been given bail in the case. The bridge on the Machchhu River in Morbi town collapsed on October 30, 2022. Oreva Group was under an agreement signed with the municipality in March 2022 to maintain the bridge.
The state government had issued an order to supersede the Morbi municipality, in the case and the action came around three months after the government served a show-cause notice on the municipality on January 18, observing that its general board had “failed” to discharge its duties.
In its show-cause notice, the government observed that the 52-member general board of Morbi municipality was “incompetent of discharging its primary duties” and asked the civic body why it should not be suspended in view of the bridge collapse.
Also read: Morbi bridge collapse: Gujarat court rejects regular bail plea of Oreva Group MD Jaysukh Patel
While hearing a suo motu public interest litigation in November 2022, a Gujarat High Court bench headed by then Chief Justice Aravind Kumar observed that “there was a default” on the party of the municipality with respect to the bridge collapse. The bench asked the state government why it was not superseding the municipality by using Section 263 of the Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963.
The municipality’s general board meeting was held on January 23 and through a resolution, asserted that a special investigation team (SIT) formed by the state government to probe into the bridge collapse, had seized the documents related to the bridge and therefore, the civic body was not in a position to reply to the notice.
The resolution also requested the government to provide the documents. Following, the state government sent a copy of the SIT’s primary report, which had copies of documents, to the municipality on February 3 and asked the latter to send its reply to the show-cause notice “without any delay”.
As the Morbi municipality didn’t file its response, the government sent a reminder to the municipality on February 13 to reply by February 16. It also warned that if the municipality didn’t respond by that date, an ex parte order would be passed in the case. The municipality in its reply to the notice pleaded innocence saying that it had never given approval to hand over the bridge to the Oreva group.
A total of 42 of its 52 councillors submitted a separate reply asserting that the majority of them were not aware of the agreement under which the bridge had been handed over to the Oreva Group. All the 52 elected councillors of the Morbi municipality were from the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party.
