Mettupalayam wall collapse: Orders reserved on house owner’s bail petition

Chennai

Justice N Seshasayee, before whom arguments transpired on either side, reserved orders without mentioning a date. Sivasubramanian, the house owner, who is the prime accused in the case, had contended in his bail plea that no person would construct a compound wall imagining that it would harm anyone.

The petitioner’s counsel, on noting that no one would bother to put his life in danger by putting up a weak construction in his residential quarters, said, “The fury of nature was such that even a well-constructed compound wall would give away.” “To connect a case of an accident to culpable homicide not amounting to murder is highly illegal,” the counsel argued.

However, the counsels appearing for the government as well as the relatives of victims who had roped themselves as intervenors in the case, stoutly opposed thegrant of bail.

Sivasubramanian has been booked for offences under Section 304(2) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC and Section 3 of the Tamil Nadu Public Property (Prevention of Damage and Loss) Act, 1992. On December 2, a portion of the over 15-foot high compound wall, damp from the heavy rains that lashed the area for the previous few days, came crashing down on the adjoining four tiled-roof houses in Nadur village, over 50 km from Coimbatore, around 5 am on Monday, killing 17 Dalits, including women and children.

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