A plea has been moved in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to set up an expert commission, headed by a retired judge of the apex court, to probe the triple train accident in Odisha.
The Balasore train accident, where two passenger trains and a goods carriage were involved, claimed 275 lives so far and left over 1,000 people injured.
The PIL, filed by advocate Vishal Tiwari, sought a direction to immediately set up an expert commission headed by a retired judge of the apex court and also consisting of technical members to analyse and review the current risk and safety parameters in the railway system and the panel should submit its report to the court.
Citing the Odisha train accident, the plea said: "It needs to be mentioned with greater concern and emphasis that India from the last few decades has seen a series of train collisions and derailments causing severe sufferance to people of our country in the form of deaths and injuries of permanent nature. Time and again, the respondent authorities have been slow to provide redress in developing a safety enforcement mechanism against such collisions and accidents."
The plea said, "The enforcement of safety mechanism of such train protection system is still not implemented on practical grounds throughout the country as it has been clearly proven that the KAVACH, which is an Automatic Train Protection System, was still not applied on these routes and such is still in the process of installing Kavach across the network."
The plea stressed that with thousands and lakhs of passengers traveling daily on trains, it becomes absolutely necessary on the part of the authorities to ensure the basic implementation of safety and redress mechanisms like the Kavach system, which would ensure safety for the people.
Citing various accidents over the years claiming hundreds of lives, the plea argued that with unregulated and negligent actions, there needs to be a strict judicial intervention, as this matters the concern of public safety and life which stands at the highest pedestal on the functioning of any state machinery.
The plea urged the apex court to issue a direction to the government to issue guidelines/directions for the implementation of Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system called KAVACH Protection System in Indian railways with immediate effect to ensure public safety.