AGRA: The National Human Rights Commission has held officials of the UP electricity department and Aligarh Municipal Corporation (AMC) liable for negligence leading to the death of three members of a family, who were electrocuted on July 17, 2016, and has issued notices to the Uttar Pradesh government directing it to pay Rs 3 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased. The commission has given the government four weeks to respond.According to the complaint filed by the family members of the deceased, water had entered houses on Guler Road in Aligarh on the fateful day after heavy rainfall. However, despite repeated requests, municipal officials failed to pump out the water from the houses, forcing the residents to do so themselves.In the complaint it has been stated that when Mithlesh Gupta, wife of the complainant Rakesh, tried to flush out the water on her own, she was electrocuted due to electricity leaking from a nearby power pole. Her son Nitin and daughter Kirti, who rushed to save her, were also electrocuted in the process.Rakesh, who had noticed this from the roof of his house, immediately alerted his neighbours and requested them to inform the power station to shut down the electricity supply in the area but no one attended their call. Rakesh alleged that due to the negligence of electricity department and AMC, three members of his family lost their lives.The NHRC noted that during the course of the inquiry, it found that the allegations made by the family members of the deceased against the electricity department and AMC were correct.The commission also observed that the executive engineer, Dakshinanchal VidyutVitraran Nigam Ltd (DVVNL), Aligarh had no evidence to prove that the department was not responsible for the incident. DVVNL had claimed that an appliance used in the house was not properly earthed.It was also confirmed that despite requests, neither the officials of the municipal corporation pumped out the water logged in the street nor the officials of the electricity department cut off the power supply in time.Rakesh also alleged the commission that officials of both the departments were mounting pressure on him to withdraw the police case filed by him.The commission’s stand, holding the negligence of the officials of both the departments responsible for the deaths also got strength from the fact that after the completion of investigations in the case under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC, police had filed a charge sheet against two employees of AMC.Therefore, the commission concluded that the state was “vicariously liable for the dereliction of duty on the part of its officials†for which it needed to pay relief to the next of kin of the three deceased persons.

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