The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday (July 12) dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) related to the Hathras stampede incident, emphasising that not all matters require filing under Article 32. Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud stated that high courts are capable of handling such cases, and the idea is not to sensationalise incidents but to address them appropriately, Live Law reported.
“Everything does not have to come in a PIL under Article 32; you file in the High Court. The idea of all this is to make a sort of big deal about incidents which take place. Obviously (they are) very disturbing incidents. High Courts are robust Courts, they are meant to deal with these kinds of matters,” Chandrachud told the petitioner, as per Live Law.
The PIL, filed by advocate Vishal Tiwari, sought a five-member expert committee under a retired Supreme Court judge’s supervision to investigate the incident, which killed 121 people, and guidelines for large public gatherings to prevent similar incidents.
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The apex court bench of Chief Justice Chandrachud and justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra granted liberty to approach the concerned high court, directing the petitioner to file under Article 226 of the Constitution.
The petitioner had requested the Supreme Court to give directions to the Uttar Pradesh state government to submit a status report and initiate legal action against responsible individuals and officials. Additionally, Tiwari pleaded the court to direct state governments to establish guidelines for managing large public gatherings, aiming to prevent similar incidents in the future.
“Such incident prima facie depicts the serious condition of responsibility lapse, negligence and unfaithful duty of care towards to the public by the government authorities. From past decade various incidents have taken place in our country wherein due to the mismanagement, lapse in duty, negligent maintenance activities, there has been cases of huge public casualties which could have been avoided yet due to such arbitrary and undone actions have led to such work,” the plea stated, as per Live Law.
The stampede occurred on July 2 during a satsang of self-styled godman Suraj Pal alias Narayan Sakaal Hari, who is referred as ‘Bhole Baba’. The Uttar Pradesh government has established a judicial commission and a Special Investigation Team (SIT), which submitted its report, blaming the meeting organisers, local administration, and police for the tragedy.
The police said they have arrested six persons including two women linked to organising the satsang where the incident took place.