NHRC persists for justice to the parents of a five-month-old child crushed under a vehicle at a construction site in a Delhi University college (30.10.2014)



PRESS RELEASE

New Delhi, 30th October, 2014

The National Human Rights Commission has taken an exception to the fact that instead of giving monetary relief to the aggrieved parents of a child crushed under the car of a CPWD contractor in New Delhi, they were thrown out of the job the next day of the accident. Not only this, no authority was accepting the responsibility to pay relief citing one or the other reason. Expressing its dissatisfaction with the reports of different authorities to whom it had issued notices, the Commission has again asked them to provide specific inputs related to their responsibilities in the matter.

A CPWD contractor had engaged the parents of the five-month-old daughter for construction work in the premises of Ram Lal Anand College. They were little suspecting that some vehicle will come in no vehicle zone and run over their sleeping daughter near a tree in the college premises. Two weeks later, the incident was reported in the media on the 26th May, 2014 of which the Commission took suo motu cognizance and called for reports from the Delhi University, College, CPWD and Labour Department authorities.

Now, the Commission has again asked the Chairman, Governing Body and the Principal of evening classes of the Ram Lal Anand College to inform whether any monetary relief had been paid to the parents of the deceased child.

Citing various provisions of the Labour Law Act, the Commission has observed that the Labour Inspectorate had failed in its responsibility to enforce them. Moreover, the labourers were being paid less wages that too through a 'Jamadar' in violation of the law. Therefore, it has asked the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), Union Ministry of Labour and Employment to get the site of the contractor M/s V.R.S. Engineers inspected under the applicable Labour Laws and submit the report. He has also been asked to enquire into the matter of dismissal of the services of the parents of the deceased child by the contractor the next day after the accident.

The Commissioner of Police, National Capital Territory of Delhi has been asked to submit detailed report of the incident including post-mortem report, inquest report of the deceased child along with the status of investigation of FIR No. 2002/2014 under Police Station, South Campus, Delhi and the status of the case pending before Motor Accident Claims Tribunal.

All the authorities have been given four weeks time to respond.

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