PIL Filed In SC On Borewell Deaths After Death Of 2-Yr-Old In TN

The petitioner said that both state and central governments were not following guidelines set by the SC.

File photo of Supreme Court of India in New Delhi.

(Photo: Reuters)

A PIL was filed on 29 October in the Supreme Court against government inaction to prevent the death of children who fall into borewells. This comes a day after Sujith Wilson, a two-year-old boy, died after falling and being trapped inside a borewell in Tamil Nadu’s Trichy district for over 80 hours.

The two-year-old’s fate prompted advocate GS Mani to file the PIL. In the plea he stated that the central and state governments are not complying with guidelines that the SC had issued in 2010 to prevent deaths in borewells/tubewells, reported Bar And Bench.

Basing the plea on newspaper reports, the petitioner said that not just Tamil Nadu but several other states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat also saw large number of borewell deaths over the past few years.

“This latest deplorable incident of Sujit in Tamil Nadu’s Trichy has again brought the message of the dangers of uncovered borewells and tubewells as many small children fall to their death into such dangerous abandoned open box well and tubewell (sic),” the petitioner contended.

Mani has now appealed to the court to to ask the state and central governments to submit records of the steps taken by both to prevent children from falling into open or abandoned borewells since the 2010 SC guidelines.

He also appealed for immediate action against erring officers for non-compliance of the guidelines.

(With inputs from Bar And Bench)