Thaindian News

Kolkata, Dec 20 (IANS) A court Tuesday extended by three days police custody of six directors of the Advanced Medicare & Research Institute (AMRI) Hospital, arrested in connection with the devastating fire in the medical facility that left 93 people dead.

Alipore Chief Judicial Magistrate Chowdhury Hefazat Karim, after hearing both the state and defence counsels, extended the police remand of the six accused till Dec 23.

In case of the seventh accused director R.S. Agarwal, the judge asked the state-run SSKM hospital to submit his medical report by Wednesday.

Agarwal got himself admitted to a private hospital where he was kept under arrest since the Dec 9 fire.

On Monday, he was brought to the court premises to be presented before the judge, but pleaded he was unwell and could not attend court.

Later, the judge went to the ambulance to speak to him before directing that he be admitted in the state-run SSKM Hospital for thorough check up by the medical board.

Six directors of the hospital, including Shrachi Group chairman S.K. Todi and his counterpart in the Emami Group R.S. Goenka, were nabbed hours after the fire Dec 9 in South Kolkata’s Dhakuria area and remanded in ten days’ police custody by the Alipore chief judicial magistrate’s court.

Defence counsels Amitabha Ganguly and Ashok Mukherjee Tuesday prayed for bail stating that the accused being directors were not involved in the day-to-day affairs of the hospital, and as such cannot be held directly liable.

They pleaded that the statements of the accused, basing upon which the prosecution was demanding their custody, are not admissible in court as they are all extra-judicial.

According to the defence lawyers, the case does not attract the provisions of section 304 (II) - culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

They argued the liability of the accused may be vicarious and the case attracts provisions of the Fire Services act and section 304 A IPC (Causing death by negligence).

As both the offences are bailable, the accused should be granted bail.

Appearing for the state, Kalyan Banerjee quoted statements of the accused and witnesses and produced investigation reports to show the directors were involved in daily affairs and acted negligently.

Therefore the provisions of section 304 (II) are applicable, he argued. Their police custody should be extended by four days as they need to be taken to the place of occurrence for the purpose of investigation.

The pre-dawn blaze at 3.30 a.m. in the high-cost hospital — co-founded by the Emami and Shrachi Groups along with the state government in 1996 — choked to death mostly critically ill patients — many of them in their sleep — and two nurses, while most doctors and other staffers were able to get away.