A division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha Mayeeof the Gujarat High Court took suo motu cognizance and called for a report from the State’s Home Department of the incident wherein at least 12 students and 2 teachers died after a boat carrying around 34 persons capsized in the Harni lake in Vadodara city.
“This whole incident has shocked the conscious of the public in general. We call upon the Secretary, Home Department of the State to submit an action taken report in the matter along with an affidavit of the Home Department, by the next date fixed. List the matter on January 29”.
Brijesh Trivedi, the President of the Gujarat High Court Advocates’ Association, submitted several news articles related to the incident to the court’s attention.
The bench orally said, “This is not only a shocking but one of the most tragic incidents. Any recklessness cannot be tolerated”.
A government counsel who was present in the courtroom informed the bench that the boat capsized due to overcapacity, carrying more individuals than it was designed to accommodate.
On which the Chief Justice, replied “This isn’t an excuse. If you do not have boats don’t let people in. It is a simple solution. We will look into this issue.”
