SHILLONG, MAY 20: Calling the continued development on the Shillong-Dawki Street “shabby and unscientific,” the Meghalaya Excessive Court docket has held each the Nationwide Highways and Infrastructure Improvement Company Restricted (NHIDCL) and the contractor chargeable for endangering lives and driving up prices, whereas issuing a set of pressing safety instructions.
A division bench of Chief Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice W Diengdoh was listening to a PIL filed after a large boulder crushed a automobile on the stretch, killing its occupants.
Advocate Common A Kumar and Deputy Solicitor Common of India Dr N Mozika instructed the Court docket that compensation of Rs 4 lakh and Rs 6 lakh, as directed in its April 29 order, had been credited to the accounts of the authorized heirs of the deceased.
Amicus Curiae Philemon Nongbri, who inspected the street on Could 14, tendered a report with images describing the floor as “in a deplorable situation.”
The report mentioned the carriageway was “lined with free mud and uncleared particles, rendering it barely motorable and intensely harmful,” and famous an “absolute lack of correct, sturdy barricades” between stay visitors and deep drops.
“The contractor has erected skinny wood sticks tied along with safety tape which presents completely no bodily restraint or safety for automobiles,” it mentioned.
Signage was flagged as “critically under acceptable commonplace,” with insecure flex banners studying “landslide inclined space” and “drive gradual” changing high-visibility boards.
The report additionally cited lacking reflectors, delineators, and “males at work” indicators regardless of heavy fog and excavators working throughout visitors hours, including that the lapses violated Sections 9.4.1 and 9.4.2 of the Hill Street Handbook.
NHIDCL submitted its personal report together with a website evaluation by empanelled hill street skilled Ashish D. Gharpure.
He mentioned “as a consequence of insufficient right-of-way provision and unattended slope stability side,” slope chopping works had been creating “hazardous situations both affecting the street consumer or the habitat/construction dwelling/constructed on the borderline/adjoining to ROW.”
He criticized a “very lame and non-engineering rationalization” for steep cuts and warned that persevering with “un-engineered lower” would lead “not solely to catastrophic harm but in addition lack of human life and eventual value of development which is multifold to preliminary provision.”
Gharpure mentioned slope mitigation in such terrain is “an skilled’s work” and referred to as for a vulnerability evaluation and DPR by specialist companies.
The Court docket noticed that it was “evident that the work isn’t being accomplished as is required to be accomplished and is being accomplished in a shabby and unscientific method by the contractor, thereby endangering human life and enhance in the price of development.”
It added, “For this, prima facie, we’re of the opinion that it’s not solely the contractor, but in addition the NHIDCL, who’s accountable.”
Dr Mozika submitted that “it seems that the DPR itself was faulty,” and the NHIDCL report admitted the contractor was chosen on monetary functionality, “and never whether or not he was an skilled in developing roads within the hills.”
The bench directed authorities to right away change makeshift flex banners with standardized retro-reflecting indicators as per IRC pointers, set up sturdy bodily barricades with reflectors in poor-visibility zones, clear free mud to revive the carriageway, and deploy skilled flagmen with communication gadgets and high-visibility gear close to heavy equipment.
It ordered Gharpure’s report be positioned earlier than the best NHIDCL authority, the Chief Secretary, and senior division officers.
Dr Mozika was requested to report on whether or not a college vacated from an space flagged within the skilled’s report had been shifted and if youngsters’s schooling was disrupted.
The Court docket additionally instructed the State and NHIDCL’s high officers to satisfy and make sure the work is accomplished “on the earliest, with out compromising on the safety of individuals and high quality of labor.”
Advocate Common Kumar was directed to make sure police deployment for clean visitors, and directions had been sought on stationing ambulances close to strategic areas for “rapid medical assist… within the occasion there may be an untoward incident.”
The case is listed subsequent on June 3, 2026.
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