NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday in its order sought a detailed response from the Bihar government, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on hearing a plea seeking direction to the state govt, and other appropriate authorities to conduct the highest level of structural audit of all the existing bridges and under construction bridges in the state and to demolish or retrofit weak structure depending of feasibility.A three-judge bench of the top court, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, asked the Bihar govt and the NHAI, to file its detailed responses on the PIL filed by Brajesh Singh.The petitioner, Singh, in his Public Interest Litigation (PIL), a copy accessed by this newspaper, filed before the top court, sought a direction to Bihar for making proper and effective policy or mechanism for real time monitoring of the bridges constructed, old and under construction with regard to the bridges falling exclusively under the domain of the respondent, i.e., the State.The plea of Singh also sought that the apex court should pass appropriate directions to Bihar for making an efficient permanent body through legislation or executive order. The body should comprised of high level expert from the concerned field for continuous monitoring of all the existing and under construction bridges in Bihar. The body should also be held responsible for maintaining the comprehensive database on the health of all the existing bridges in the state.”Back to back collapse of the bridges in Bihar clearly indicates that there has been no lessons learnt and safety of critical infrastructure like bridges is not taken seriously and these routine incidents cannot be termed merely accidents it is manmade disasters,” Singh in his PIL said.Raising serious concern over the collapsing of many bridges, Singh, in his PIL, said that it was a matter of grave concern that in a state like Bihar, which is the most flood-prone state of India, the total flood affected area in the state is 68,800 sq. km. which is 73.06% of the total geographical area of it.”Thereby such routine accrual of the incident of falling bridges in Bihar is more disastrous as the lives of people at large at stake and therefore the urgent intervention of this Court is required to save the lives of people at large who are in the present living in uncertainty, as the under construction bridges before its accomplishment got collapsed in the routine manner,” Singh said in his PIL.Singh underlined the fact that the apex court had in numerous occasions, uder Article 21 of the Constitution of India, said that the right to life cannot be like mere animal existence, rather than it shall be as “Right to Life with dignity”.Singh also said that day by day the major incidents of unfortunate loss to human lives as well loss to public exchequer was happening, due to the gross negligence of the government and corrupt nexus of the contractors and concerned agencies.
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