Kumbh Deaths: Allahabad High Court Raps Adityanath Govt for 'Apathy'

New Delhi: A vacation bench of the Allahabad high court has pulled up the Uttar Pradesh government for showing “apathy towards the plight of the citizen” in its handling of the deaths at the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj earlier this year. It also asked the Uttar Pradesh government to disclose the total number of people who died during the Mahakumbh.

LiveLaw reports that in a strongly worded order, the high court chastised the government over its delay in disbursing ex-gratia compensation to the families of those who died on the night of shahi snan – or the holy dip – on Mauni Amavasya on January 29.

A bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Sandeep Jain said that the government's conduct was "untenable" and reflective of its "apathy to the plight of the citizen." 

While the Adityanath government had said that the death toll from the crowd crush on January 29 was 30, reports had alleged that the real figures could be higher.

The high court also said that once the government had announced compensation, it was its "bounden duty" to ensure timely and dignified payment.

“Prima facie, we find the stand taken to be untenable and smacking of apathy to the plight of the citizen, inasmuch as the occurrence may have been caused for reasons beyond the control of the State, at the same time having realised the consequence of that occurrence and having announced a scheme for payment of ex-gratia compensation, it was the bounden duty of the State to pay up the compensation to the aggrieved families with utmost grace and dignity."

As for the way the government handled the case of a deceased whose body was handed over to the family without an autopsy, the court said:

“If a person was admitted to any hospital, documentation offered by the government agencies should reflect the same and should have been communicated to the petitioner. If any patient was brought dead to a hospital, that statement should have also been recorded and made known to the concerned. In any case, it should have been made known to the petitioner, from which hospital and in what circumstance, the dead body of his wife came to be deposited in the mortuary from where it was handed over to the petitioner's son. If that body had been found lying unclaimed at any place, appropriate police action ought to have proceeded or followed that discovery of the dead body. No fact disclosure in that regard, exists.”

The court also made 'medical institutions’ and ‘authorities in Prayagraj’ parties to the case. It directed them to file affidavits which should reveal deaths and medical handling of victims between January 28 and the end of the Mela.

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