HC: identify transformers on footpaths in three days

The Karnataka High Court on Thursday directed the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) to find out the number of transformers installed on footpaths and roads in the city and submit a report indicating the time required to relocate them.

Justice Ram Mohan Reddy issued the directions while hearing a petition in which the family members of a victim, who was allegedly electrocuted after coming in contact with the fence around a transformer on Church Street in May 2013, sought Rs. 29.81 crore as compensation.

The petitioners alleged that Manoj Kumar Vasanthrao Patil, who was the vice-president of Sundaram Auto Components, died owing to the “negligence” of Bescom.

Encroachment

Earlier, the BBMP had told the court that the Church Street transformer had been installed by Bescom after encroaching upon a large space on the footpath. On Thursday, the court noticed that Bescom was making a “concerted effort to suppress” what actually happened on the day on which Mr. Patil died. The court pointed out that certain records submitted by the State revealed that the police, soon after the incident, had seen Bescom’s junior engineers “tinkering” with the electrical installations by fixing some red coloured tapes on electrical wire.

Justice Reddy also noted that the autopsy report submitted by the Forensic Science Laboratory at the Bangalore Medical College stated that the “death was due to cardiac failure as a result of electrocution.”

The court pointed out that the managing director of Bescom had written to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission that Mr. Patil might have suffered a mild shock owing to “induction current” as “humidity was very high due to rain on that day.”

The Bescom has been denying the allegation that electricity was passing through the fence around the transformer and also claiming that the post-mortem report did not categorically mention electrocution, but only stated that death was due to cardiac arrest and that “electrocution not be ruled out.”