SC stresses on uniform standards to ensure students' safety at coaching centres

New Delhi: A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan was hearing a matter related to the deaths of three civil service aspirants at a coaching centre in the national capital in July due to the flooding in the building's basement. On July 27, the three students drowned in the basement library of Rau's IAS Study Circle in Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar area after it was flooded following heavy rains. The top court was informed by senior advocate Siddharth Dave, who is assisting the top court as an amicus curiae, about the broad areas that required attention. Dave referred to the aspects of fire safety, fee regulation, student to classroom area ratio, student to teacher ratio, installation of CCTVs, medical facilities, mental health care and counselling for those studying at coaching centres. He suggested that all states be impleaded as parties in the matter. The amicus further referred to the legislation dealing with coaching institutes in seven states. When Dave suggested some sort of an oversight, the bench said it should be permanent. "It can't be that an unfortunate incident occurs and then suddenly one become aware of everything," the bench observed.

The apex court pointed out the need to have uniform standards on the issue. The respondent authorities were asked to offer suggestions to the amicus on the desirability of a comprehensive policy for coaching institutes, initially with respect to the National Capital Region (NCR). The matter will be heard after two weeks. While hearing the matter on September 20, the top court had directed a Union government-appointed committee probing the three deaths to submit an interim report about the measures it wanted to be taken to prevent recurrence of such incidents. The apex court had also asked the Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi governments to apprise it of the policy and legislative and administrative changes made to prevent such incidents in future. It had said uniform initiatives should be taken in the entire NCR to prevent another Old Rajinder Nagar-type incident from happening. The top court had said the panel could consider intervention at the legislative, policy, and administrative levels, apart from eliciting views of all the stakeholders before making its recommendations.

The apex court had also said it would be covering the "wider canvas" and would examine the issue at pan-India level to ensure such incidents did not occur again elsewhere. On August 5, the top court had observed that coaching centres had become "death chambers" and were playing with the lives of students. It had taken cognisance of the matter while hearing a petition filed by an association of coaching centres challenging a December 2023 Delhi High Court order which directed the city's fire services and the civic body to inspect all coaching centres to ascertain if they were complying with fire safety norms. The high court had transferred the probe into the death of the three students from Delhi Police to the CBI "to ensure the public has no doubt over the investigation". The three UPSC aspirants who drowned were Shreya Yadav (25) of Uttar Pradesh, Tanya Soni (25) of Telangana and Nevin Delvin (24) of Kerala.