Baby crushed to death at DU College, NHRC dissatisfied over

National Human Rights Commission today expressed "dissatisfaction" over various government agencies skirting responsibility to pay monetary relief to the parents of a five-month-old child who was allegedly crushed under a vehicle at a construction site in a Delhi University college.
The Commission also issued notices to the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment and Delhi Police to submit detailed reports in this connection within four weeks time.
According to an official statement released today, the Commission has taken an exception to the fact that instead of giving monetary relief to the aggrieved parents of a child crushed under the car of a CPWD contractor in New Delhi, they were thrown out of the job the next day of the accident.

"Not only this, no authority was accepting the responsibility to pay relief citing one or the other reason. Expressing its dissatisfaction with the reports of different authorities to whom it had issued notices, the Commission has again asked them to provide specific inputs related to their responsibilities in the matter," the statement said.
A CPWD contractor had engaged the parents of a five-month- old girl for construction work in the premises of Ram Lal Anand College.
They were little suspecting that some vehicle will come in 'no vehicle' zone and run over their sleeping daughter near a tree in the college premises.

Two weeks later, the incident was reported in media on May 26, of which the Commission took suo motu cognizance and called for reports from the authorities of Delhi University, the College, the CPWD and the Labour Department.

Now, the Commission has again asked the Chairman, Governing Body and the Principal of evening classes of the Ram Lal Anand College to inform whether any monetary relief had not been paid to the parents of the deceased child.
Citing various provisions of the Labour Law Act, the Commission has observed that the Labour Inspectorate had failed in its responsibility to enforce them.

Moreover, the labourers were being paid fewer wage that too through a 'Jamadar' in violation of the law.
Therefore, it has asked the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), Union Ministry of Labour and Employment to get the site of the contractor M/s VRS Engineers inspected under the applicable Labour Laws and submit the report.
He has also been asked to enquire into the matter of dismissal of the services of the parents of the deceased child by the contractor the next day after the accident, the statement said.
The Commissioner of Police has also been asked to submit detailed report of the incident including post-mortem report, inquest report of the deceased child along with the status of investigation under police station, South Campus, Delhi and the status of the case pending before Motor Accident Claims Tribunal.