Not impressed by Hyderabad Engineering Institute’s plea for being exempted to pay interim relief to parents of the 24 students who were washed away last month in Beas River, as all students had accidental insurance cover, the court directed the institution to pay up and dismissed their application.
Seeking a modification to the courts earlier order, VNR Vigyan Jyoti Institute of Engineering & Technology, Hyderabad had moved an application for being exempted to pay interim relief of Rs 2.5 lakh to parents of each of the student who had died in the tragedy as the college had secured a personal accident insurance for all the 926 BTech students at the institute.
The college also let the court know that 2nd year students had a personal accident cover of Rs 2 lakh for which the premium had been paid by the college. The college had taken all necessary measures for safeguarding the students and all its officers/officials had performed their duties diligently and no carelessness, callousness and negligence of theirs is evident, the instituted claimed before the court. The college authorities also informed the court that it had been decided to refund tuition fee paid by students over the two years that amounted to about Rs 1,74,050 and the college had also decided to repay any educational loan taken by the parents for education of students.
Not convinced, Chief Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir and Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan before dismissing the application ruled, “No ground for modification of order is made out.” Directing the college to refund the tuition fee and asking the insurance company to release the insurance amount due within two weeks, the judges announced, “Effect of refund of tuition fee amount and release of insurance amount will be considered at the time of final orders.”
Having announced a Rs 5 lakh interim relief that was to borne equally by the college and HP State Electricity Board, the board submitted before the court the amount stood deposited by it. Following the accident the court had suo moto taken cognisance of the tragic incident.