The Supreme Court bench headed by the CJI, issued a notice to the Centre in concurrence to a PIL, filed by an NGO United Human Rights Federation, seeking direction for proper implementation of National Building Code for construction of building in the country, the bench, however, refrained from issuing notices to the states for the time being.
United Human Rights Federation was represented by senior advocate Parag Tripathi, their contention being the unfortunate slack in the implementation of the National Building Code in its true spirit.
The PIL was filed through advocate VK Biju citing the National Crime Records Bureau, data in 2014, according to which, a total of 20,377 cases of fire accidents were reported in the country during 2014, which injured 1,889 persons and caused 19,513 deaths.
“The cause-wise analysis of fire accidents revealed that 18.3% of 20,377 fire accidents were reported in residential/dwelling buildings. Maximum cases of fire accidents were reported in Maharashtra (4805 out of 20,337), accounting for 23.6% of total such cases.”
It was also added that there are blatant violations in, even, the construction of buildings like the Hon’ble Supreme Court and Parliament House, the two utmost important building resembling the symbol of democracy, as far as the Fire Safety Management concerns are considered. Various news reports published in The Times of India on November 27, 2014, starting “No fire safety certificates for Parliament, SC in 10 years” or the report of The Hindu as the “SC and Parliament buildings not fire-safe” made the petitioner extremely concerned over the present safety conditions.
It was also alleged that in the name of urbanization, buildings are constructed mainly based on the chicanery of the developers and as disturbing as it may sound, the states overlook many such cases. Such an allegation was inclusive of illegal construction of schools, universities and educational institutes, even airports, resulting in an exponential rise in the risk of inevitable tragedies.
The National Building Code of India, 2016, in which requirements of fire and life safety have been thoroughly revised and upgraded to meet the challenges of modern complex building types, including high rises, have not been implemented in its true spirit.
“The Code provides for fire lifts in high rise buildings exclusively for the use of firemen in case of an emergency. Further, the code provides norms for the construction of fire-scape staircases in buildings for the use of stairwells during emergency situations. Further, the code provides for heavy static water storage in the form of underground water tank be made available in buildings to fight fire at the rate of 1000 liters per minute. Further, the code requires that buildings should install automatic sprinklers in the basements used for car parking or storage occupancy exceeding 200 m2 area.”
The petition prayed for an order or direction compelling the respondents to develop a “centralized audit mechanism” so that a quarterly or yearly audit can be conducted over the existing buildings in furtherance of maintaining the updated status of the buildings, mainly involving public access like shopping complexes, malls, schools and educational institutions and courts etc.
The bench sought the Centre’s reply and posted the matter for April 9.
