Chandigarh: Court frames charges against house owner, man operating Sector 32 PG
Ramkrishan Upadhyay
Tribune news service
Chandigarh, August 2
Jagdeep Sood, Additional Sessions Judge, has framed charges against the two accused in a year-old fire incident at a PG accommodation in which three girls had lost their lives and two others were injured.
The charges have been framed against owner of the house Gourav Aneja and Nitish Bansal, who was running the PG accommodation at the house after taking it on rent.
The charges have framed under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 336 (whoever does any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or the personal safety of others), and 337 read with 34 of the IPC (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).
The court has also fixed August 26 for the prosecution evidence.
As per the prosecution, Aneja had given the house to Bansal on lease and was running the PG at the house.
The Sector 32-D house here had caught fire on February 22, 2020.
Ashok Rohilla, additional public prosecutor, argued that besides the person running the PG, the owner was also responsible for the death of the girls.
Rohilla said the accused had raised temporary fibre and wooden partition/structures illegally, leaving narrow space for stairs in the building, so as to accommodate a maximum number of students without providing proper ventilation and emergency exit.
He claimed that this was done to earn maximum profit while putting the lives of the girl students at risk.
The prosecution alleged that when the fire broke out the girls got trapped and three of them died while few others got injured.
The fire had broken out on the first floor of the house and three girls – Muskan Mehta, Riya and Pakshi Grover, all aged between 19 and 21 years – died in the incident. At the time of the incident, 17 girls were present in the house.
The prosecution also alleged that the building bylaws were violated while operating the PG accommodation.
Both accused, meanwhile, pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.
