HC asks govt to frame draft guidelines by August 22

A bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam gave the direction after Advocate General A Navaneethakrishnan sought more time to enable the government to frame the rules.

The court had on July 27 directed the government to frame the draft rules while taking suo motto cognisance of the July 25 death of a class II girl student of a private school here who fell through a hole in the floor of her school bus.

The Judges noted that the Supreme Court had already issued directives and guidelines for regulating use of school buses.

"A circular to that effect was issued on August 17, 2006 by the transport department to regulate all the vehicles carrying children from the school," the Bench pointed out.

"Hence, in our view there may not be difficulty for the government to immediately frame rules incorporating the effective measures to be taken by transport operators for the purpose of use of vehicles meant for carrying school children," the bench said.

Meanwhile, an advocate informed the court that since the death of Shruthi, more than five accidents, involving the death of school children had taken place allegedly due to rash and negligent driving by drivers of their vehicles had taken place in the state.