The Madhya Pradesh High Court has granted a one-month extension to a commission led by former judge Justice Sushil Kumar Gupta to investigate the drinking water contamination deaths in Bhagirathpura, Indore, allowing more time to submit a detailed report.
INDORE: The Madhya Pradesh High Court granted a one-month extension to a commission investigating the water contamination incident in Indore, allowing it time to submit a detailed report. The commission, chaired by former High Court judge Justice Sushil Kumar Gupta, is looking into the fatalities linked to tainted drinking water in the Bhagirathpura area of the city.
A division bench of Justices Vijay Kumar Shukla and Alok Awasthi also instructed the state government to provide the commission with all the requested documents, which include post-mortem reports of the deceased individuals, reports on drinking water tests, and records related to water pipelines.
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Manish Yadav, the lawyer for one of the petitioners, informed that the commission had submitted its interim report to the High Court in a sealed envelope. He noted that the state government had yet to furnish the commission with the complete documentation requested concerning the Bhagirathpura case. Yadav reported that following the interim report, the court ordered the state government to deliver the necessary records to the commission promptly.
He stated,
“The Indore bench of HC has granted the one-member inquiry commission one month to submit a detailed report in the Bhagirathpura case and fixed April 6 for the next hearing,”
Additionally, the attorney representing another petitioner, Ajay Bagadia, mentioned that his client filed a new application in the High Court, alleging that municipal corporation employees had added potassium chloride tablets to a large overhead water tank without authorization.
This application claimed that the excessive potassium chloride in the tank, which is part of Bhagirathpura’s water supply system, rendered the drinking water unsafe for residents.
Bagadia noted that the court might consider the application on April 6. The outbreak of vomiting and diarrhea associated with contaminated drinking water in Bhagirathpura started in late December of the previous year.
Local residents and members of the Congress have claimed that 36 individuals lost their lives due to the outbreak. However, during a heated assembly session on February 19, Health Minister Rajendra Shukla stated that 22 deaths had occurred as a direct result of contaminated water in Bhagirathpura.
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