Top officials of firm booked for ignoring pot-holes on road maintained by them

In a rare case of assertion of one's legal rights, a Bundi resident, after meeting an accident on a pot-holed stretch of a national highway, got top officials of a road-building firm booked on charges of endangering his life by their failure to repair the road as per their contract.

The police on Sunday said the officials of road-building GVK Construction company have been booked on charges of endangering human lives for their failure to repair a pot-holed stretch of the Kota-Deoli national highway that they had been contracted to build and maintain in Bundi district.

The top officials against whom the FIR has been lodged include the chairman, directors and the manager of the company, said SHO Ramesh Tiwari of Talera police station in Bundi district.

The FIR was registered under sections 336 and 337 of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to the offence of endangering human lives and safety and causing hurt by such acts, he added.

Another section 283 of the IPC pertaining to posing "danger or obstruction in public way or line of navigation" too has been added to the FIR, he said.

Tiwari said the FIR was registered on a complaint by Bundi resident Dinesh Kumar, who met an accident on the pot-holed stretch of the road while going to Kota from Bundi along with his wife and a child on a motorcycle on September 5.

The complainant said he and his family members were badly hurt in the accident due to ditches that the road has developed in the last two-three months and has also been filled with water, making it impossible to spot them, said the SHO.

He said he and his family members barely escaped from being mowed down by a speeding truck, tailing his motorcycle, the SHO added.

Quoting the complainant, he said the GVK company, which has been contracted to build and operate the road, has neither bothered to fill the ditches nor erect any barricade around them warning of their presence,.

He said though the firm failed to repair the road, endangering human lives, it continues to collect hefty toll from the road users, the SHO added.

Section 337 entails a jail term of six months and a fine of Rs 500, S 336 a term of three months and Rs 250 fine and S 283 only a fine of Rs 200.

It's rare to find a man insist on registering an FIR after meeting an accident due to pot-holes roads, quipped a police official.