The Gujarat High Court has recently granted bail to the 3 security guards who got deployed on the suspension of the Morbi bridge.
While granting them relief, Justice Samir Dave took into account their lawyer’s submission that they were only doing their job and played no role in the process of decision-making that led to the tragedy.
As many as 135 persons were killed & 56 severely injured when the British-era bridge, maintained & operated by the Oreva Group, and collapsed days after it had been reopened following repairs.
However, after a short hearing, the HC granted bail to Alpesh Gohil (25), Dilip Gohil (33) and Mukesh Chauhan (26), all are residents of Tunki Vaju village in Garbada taluka of Dahod district.
They were along with the 10 accused arrested by police in the case. It was alleged that besides false repairing, and failure for managing the footfall on the bridge led to its collapse.
Furthermore, the accused trio’s lawyer Ekant Ahuja said that they were actually been hired as laborers by the Oreva Group, but deployed as security guards on the bridge as it was their weekly off.
Public prosecutor Mitesh Amin didn’t oppose the bail pleas, stating that the “principal liability lies on the owners of Oreva Group and persons who performed the fabrication job (on the bridge)”.
Therefore, Justice Dave said that he was allowing the bail pleas as the applicants were security personnel hired by the company.
Those who are still behind bars include Jaysukh Patel (managing director of the Oreva Group); managers of the firm Dipak Parekh & Dinesh Dave; ticket-booking clerks Mansukh Topiya and Mahadev Solanki, and sub-contractors Prakash Parmar and Devang Parmar who had been hired by Oreva Group for bridge’s repair works.
In January, Morbi police filed a charge sheet in the case.
All 10 accused have been charged under IPC section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) besides other offences.
