Supreme Court seeks Bihar's response to PIL for structural audit of bridges

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition that called for the conduct of an advanced structural audit of all existing and under-construction bridges in Bihar and to demolish weak structures..The bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra has sought the response of the Bihar government on the plea moved by one Brajesh Singh..The PIL petition was filed after nine bridges reportedly collapsed in the State within a span of 15 days..The plea has sought urgent action since several under-construction and existing bridges have collapsed in Bihar in the last two years, leading to the loss of lives and significant financial damage to the public exchequer.The petitioner submitted that consecutive collapses of bridges in Bihar clearly indicated that no lessons have been learned and that the safety of critical infrastructure like bridges is not being taken seriously.These routine incidents cannot be termed merely as accidents and are man-made disasters, the plea added.The petition underlined that 73.06 per cent of the total geographical area of the State is flood-prone and, therefore, the routine collapse of bridges leaves a lot of lives at stake.It also cited the apex court's decision in Chameli Singh v State of UP which held that the right to shelter includes adequate living space, safe and decent structure, clean and decent surroundings, sufficient light, pure air and water, electricity, sanitation and other civic amenities like roads, etc. so as to have easy access to one's daily avocation.Accordingly, along with the request for structural audits of bridges, the plea has sought a direction to the Bihar government to make a proper policy mechanism for real-time monitoring of all bridges in the State. Further, it has sought a direction to the government to form an expert body for monitoring the health of bridges in the State.