Hearth personnel at a Vishal Mega Mart showroom, the place a hearth broke out on Friday, on the Karol Bagh space, in New Delhi, Saturday, July 5, 2025. File
| Picture Credit score: PTI
The Delhi Excessive Court docket on Wednesday (July 9, 2025) requested petitioner NGO Kutumb to file a separate petition in search of a court-monitored probe into the July 4 hearth at Vishal Mega Mart in Karol Bagh, which claimed two lives.
The NGO had sought the court docket’s intervention by an utility in an ongoing case associated to the July 2024 flooding in Outdated Rajinder Nagar, the place three college students died after a drain burst led to water accumulation in a training centre’s basement. Nevertheless, the court docket stated the 2 incidents had been unrelated.
“File a separate petition. Reason for motion completely different. In teaching case, it was flooding. Right here it’s hearth,” the court docket noticed, stating that it might be tough to observe each below the identical proceedings.
The plea filed by Kutumb alleged negligence on the a part of Vishal Mega Mart’s administration, the Delhi Police, hearth providers, and the Municipal Company of Delhi (MCD). It flagged severe lapses within the enforcement of security laws and raised issues relating to the issuance of licences and no-objection certificates (NOCs) to business institutions working in congested areas with out complying with necessary norms.
The petitioner additionally sought instructions for investigating the roles of the MCD, hearth providers, and police officers for allegedly failing to implement prescribed security protocols.
The plea additional referred to as for an instantaneous evaluation of whether or not Vishal Mega Mart and adjoining business models held legitimate NOCs, and urged the authorities to establish and act in opposition to these working with out correct clearances.
It additionally sought a directive to briefly shut down unlicensed purchasing centres, eating places, teaching institutes, and comparable institutions in Karol Bagh and close by areas till an in depth standing report is submitted.
Two males died within the July 4 blaze that broke out at Vishal Mega Mart in central Delhi’s Karol Bagh.
Printed – July 09, 2025 07:15 pm IST
