As Tamil Nadu mourns the death of Sujith, a two-year-old boy who was brought out dead on Tuesday, four days after fell into an abandoned borewell in Trichy district, the Madras High Court has slammed the government of Tamil Nadu for being ‘blood-thirsty’ and not implementing Supreme Court guidelines on the digging of borewells.
The court was hearing a petition filed by V Ponraj, seeking the implementation of the Supreme Court order on borewells in the country. “The guidelines issued by the Hon’ble Supreme Court is of preventive nature. The non-compliance of the said guidelines by the government had invited the problem, which directly takes away the fundamental right of the child Sujith which was guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” read the plea.
Explaining the rescue efforts put in by the government and by private persons like Manikandan from Madurai and Sridhar from Coimbatore, Ponraj stated that deploying one method after the other consumed golden hours in the rescue operations. “It clearly shows that the government is not in a position to ascertain the ground reality and is not prepared or equipped with the rescue operations,” read the petition. The petitioner also sought that the court direct the government to furnish an hour-to-hour report about the rescue operations and to immediately implement the Supreme Court guidelines on borewells and the Tamil Nadu Panchayats (Regulation of sinking of wells and safety measures) Rules 2015.
During the hearing, the high court bench, consisting of Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice N Seshasayee, slammed the state government for waiting for an unfortunate incident to happen before initiating steps to implement something. The judges also remarked that such incidents can be avoided only if every individual acts with social responsibility.
Adding that the officials are not inspecting if rules brought in by the government are followed, the court raised several questions regarding the enforcement of rules related to borewells in the state. “Are documents related to the permissions granted to drill borewells in the state maintained?”, “How many borewells have been permitted to be drilled in the state till date?”, “How many borewells are in an abandoned state?”, “What action has been taken on people who have violated the norms?” were some of the questions that the judges asked.
The court also came down heavily on media stating that apart from covering the rescue live all the time, the media did not act responsibly. Pointing out that the media did not broadcast information about the dangers of abandoned, open borewells, the judges said that media has a great share of responsibility in creating awareness and hence must try and do that.
Ordering the state government to offer compensation for Sujith’s family, the bench ordered the government to respond to its queries before November 21.
The Supreme Court had, in 2010, framed guidelines on borewells across the country which included directions on the safety instructions to be followed if one owns a borewell. Installing barbed wire fencing or any other suitable fencing around the borewell, adequate warning signs near the borewells, closing the borewell with caps and filling up the borewell pit with clay, pebbles etc, were some of the guidelines issued by the apex court. The court had also ordered that these guidelines be sent to every state government, which will, in turn, forward it to the district collectors for compliance.