Jaundice outbreak case: Contractor, EE denied bail

The bail pleas of a contractor of a sewerage Plant (STP) and an Executive Engineer in a jaundice outbreak case was rejected by a local court today while the SDO and Junior Engineer, R L Gautam and Abhishek Sharma were remanded to one day police custody.
The Special Investigation team (SIT) constituted by SP, Shimla, on January 21 following a complaint filed by Deputy Mayor of Shimla municipal corporation, Tikender Panwar, to probe the reasons for spread of jaundice and fix the responsibility for laxity, has so far arrested seven persons including the Contractor, Ajay Dogar, Executive Engineer, two assistant engineers, two junior engineers and a supervisor of irrigation and public health departments and five of them are in judicial custody.

The contractor and the executive engineer had complained of chest pain and were admitted to Indira Gandhi Medical College Hospital here and are still hospitalised.
The SDO and JE would be produced in the court tomorrow, Shimla SP D W Negi said.
The SIT has also quizzed the chief engineer concerned and superintending engineer and also sent a questionnaire to member secretary Pollution Control Board.
All the concerned officers of the departments responsible for maintaining quality of water are under the scanner.