Supreme Court Demands Details On Safety Scheme For Prevention Of Train Accidents From Centre Government

In an effort to stop train accidents in the nation, the Supreme Court on Tuesday requested information from the Center regarding protective measures that have been put into place or are being considered, such as the automatic train protection system known as “Kavach.”

A petition bringing up the subject of safety precautions to avoid rail accidents was being heard by a bench consisting of Justices Surya Kant and K V Viswanathan. The petitioner Vishal Tiwari was instructed by the bench to provide a copy of his plea to the Attorney General’s office.

The ‘Kavach’ scheme

The ‘Kavach’ scheme and any protective measures that the government has implemented or plans to implement must be reported to the court by the Attorney General, according to the statement. Four weeks later, the bench scheduled a hearing on the subject. Tiwari informed the Supreme Court that his case brings up the subject of public safety protocols.

The petitioner cited the June 2018 rail catastrophe in Odisha’s Balasore district, which claimed 288 lives, and said the government had implemented a protection system to stop trains from colliding.  He added that train collisions have caused numerous accidents in the past.

“Is there any kind of exercise undertaken that how much financial implication will be there on the ‘Kavach’ system in case it is introduced on a pan-India basis,” the bench asked.

“Everything has co-relation with financial aspect because ultimately the burden will be passed on to the passengers,” it observed.

Supreme Courts asks for details on ‘Kavach scheme’

Tiwari emphasized the importance of people’s lives and safety despite criticizing the government for overseeing an excessive number of projects. He remarked that the administration ought to inform the highest court of the actions it has taken in this respect.

The plea has asked the Center to establish an expert commission with technical members, led by a retired judge of the highest court, to examine and assess the safety and risk parameters of the railway system, make recommendations for methodical safety changes to reinforce the safety mechanism, and report back to the court.

According to the claim, respondent authorities are directly liable for severe negligence and violation of duty of care, as a result of the ‘kavach’ system’s delayed implementation, which has caused significant loss of life and property damage.

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Immediate introduction of Kavach scheme to protect against train accidents

Additionally, it has requested the publication of rules for the immediate introduction of the “kavach” system in Indian Railways. The government was specifically ordered by the plea to enforce the Railway Accidents Protective Measures, reinforce them, and prevent accidents in the future in order to protect the fundamental rights of life and liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution.

It made reference to the nation’s train mishaps over the past three decades and claimed that authorities had been sluggish to respond by creating a safety enforcement system to prevent these kinds of collisions and mishaps.

“The enforcement of safety mechanisms of train protection system is still not done at ground level throughout the country as it has been clearly proven that Kavach, which is an Automatic Train Protection System, was still not applied on this route…”, the plea said.

The plea claimed that the installation of the “kavach” protection system was imperative and that train operations should cease immediately in the absence of it. Days after the June 2018 disaster involving a goods train and the Bengaluru-Howrah Superfast Express and Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express, which were carrying about 2,500 passengers each, near Balasore’s Bahanaga Bazar station, the petition was submitted.