Flyover collapse: 10 IVRCL officials get conditional bail

Ten persons including the key officials of the construction company IVRCL who were arrested in connection with Vivekananda Flyover incident were given conditional bail when they were produced before the Bankshall Court on Thursday.

It may be recalled that 24 people were killed and several others left injured when a portion of the flyover collapsed at the intersection of Rabindra Sarani and Vivekananda Road on March 31.

A 23-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed to probe into the incident. Police had arrested senior officials of the construction company including Gopal Krishnamurti, director (operation), SK Ratnam, DGM (operation), Ranjit Bhattacharya, assistant vice president (Kolkata) Mallikaarjun Rao, IVRCL assistant general manager, Debjyoti Manjumdar, assistant manager, Pradip Kumar Saha, structure manager, Tanmoy Sil, project manager, an official Nilay Roy and two site engineers Shyamal Manna and Bidyut Manna. All ten of them were given bail on Thursday.

Dibyaduti Sinha, the defence lawyer, submitted before the court that they had been behind the bars for the more than 200 days but there had been no further development in the probe of the incident.

At the same time reports of RITES have also proved that raw materials were properly tested before being used to construct the flyover. He also submitted that they had no connection with the procurement of materials and pleaded for bail of all the ten persons.

The court granted them conditional bail at a bail bond of Rs 50,000 each and they have to deposit their passport. They have also been directed to meet the investigating officer of the case once a week.

It may be recalled that the construction of the flyover had initiated in the Left Front regime. But it didn’t get completed as several cases were lodged by the people staying in houses along Vivekananda Road.

Later the work had started again and the portion of the flyover had collapsed a few months ahead of its completion.