MUMBAI: The civic ward officer should be held accountable and liable
for this lapse of an open manhole in which Dr Deepak Amrapurkar died,
said a recently retired Bombay high court judge, Justice V M Kanade, on
Friday, hours after the body was found. Legal experts said civic
administration or even officials concerned must be held personally
liable for the loss due to their negligence.

“An open manhole is definitely a civil negligence even if the floods
were unforeseen. The BMC is liable to pay compensation,” said the former
judge.

Like Justice Kanade, other legal experts say the civic administration
is liable to compensate the family for the death of Amrapurkar, who
never reached home after he left Bombay hospital on August 29 during the
deluge. “Though the death is monumentally tragic, it can’t be said the
civic administration can be held criminally liable. There can be no FIR
registered against officials under section 304A (death due to
negligence) in this case, but it is certainly a case of civil liability,
where the liability must be fixed on an officer/s concerned who then
must be ordered to personally compensate from his or their pockets.”

“The least the BMC could have done was to create a barricade or a
signage near the dangerous spot,” added Kanade. “Whether it is criminal
negligence or not is debatable.”

The 58-year-old doctor is believed to have fallen in to an open
manhole. A short walk from Elphinstone Road to his house nearby proved
to be his last. His body was discovered on Friday morning at a drain
near Worli. The doctor’s death has disturbed the society and highlighted
the lack of civic preparedness and its “continuing negligence”, said
lawyers.

The BMC can’t shrug its liability, said lawyer Sujay Kantawala.

A query under RTI Act in 2015 had revealed that 12 roads alone had 20
open manholes. The civic response was that the cover thefts were on the
rise. But there has been no move to use technology to ensure instant
alerts when a cover goes missing to replace them or place red flags.

When the administration fails to do its duty, it amounts to negligence
and attracts the law of tort when a member of the public suffers as a
result of such negligence.