'No coaching to be allowed without safety norms,' Supreme Court takes suo motu cognisance of death of 3 UPSC aspirants

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday said no coaching institute should be allowed to run without the safety norms as these centre have become death chambers.

The top court took a suo motu cognisance of death of three civil services aspirants on July 27 in drowing incident due to flooding of basement with rainwater at a coaching centre in Rajender Nagar area of Delhi.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan said no coaching or tuition centre, not only in Delhi, but at least even in National Capital Region, should be allowed to operate unless there is meticulous compliance of fire safety norms and other safety measures for the students, besides other basic amenities for a dignified human life. 

Such norms must necessarily include proper ventilation, safety passages, air, light, potable water, washrooms and such other requisites as may be prescribed through statutory measures or guidelines, the bench said.

The court said the Union as well as the Delhi governments should come out with guidelines and safety norms for such coaching institutes which have become death chambers.

"The recent unfortunate incidents taking away lives of some of the young ones who joined coaching centres for their career pursuits are eye openers for one and all. We therefore deem it appropriate to expand the scope of these proceedings as suo motu to issue notice to Union of India, through Ministry of Urban Affairs, and NCT of Delhi to show cause as to what safety norms have been prescribed so far and if so what is the effective mechanism introduced for their compliance," the bench said.

The court issues notice to Centre, Delhi government seeking their response on safety norms, observing such institutions should run online until they are able to fulfill all safety norms under the laws and bylaws.

It asked Attorney General R Venkatramani to assist in the matter and scheduled the matter for hearing on September 20, 2024.

The court sought to know as to what kind of adequate safety norms were being followed in all the coaching centres. It asked them to bring on record the steps taken by them, after citing the tragic death of three IAS aspirants in Delhi.

The court also invited suggestions from other stakeholders, especially the students, as to what stringent measures are required to be taken on short term and long term plan basis. It also issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh and Haryana governments.

The court was hearing another similar plea filed by Coaching Federation of India, against Delhi High Court's order of directing the Delhi government and MCD to close down the coaching centres operating in the State without a valid No-objection certificate (NOC) from the Fire Department after the incident.

The court dismissed the "frivolous" with Rs one lakh cost, saying this is a state of affairs where a lot of young ones coming from places across the country to Delhi have lost their lives. 

Three aspirants who lost their lives in incident were identified as Tania Soni (25), Shreya Yadav (25) and Navin Delvin (28).

On August 2, the Delhi High Court had entrusted the probe into the July 27 drowning of three civil services aspirants at the basement of the coaching centre here from Delhi Police to the CBI.