Deepak Parekh, one of the directors of the Oreva company responsible for maintaining the bridge and among the nine arrested in the wake of the incident, told the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate and Additional Senior Civil Judge MJ Khan that “it was his will of God (Bhagwan ni ichcha) that such an unfortunate event happened’. Morbi Bridge (Express Photo by Nirmal Harindran) Seeking a 10-day remand of four of the nine arrested, DSP Zala, in oral submissions in the courtroom, said, “Without fixing the permissible capacity and without government approval, the bridge was opened on October 26. No life-saving equipment or lifeguards were used … As part of the maintenance and repair, only the platform (deck) was changed. No other work was undertaken as per the FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) report by a team hailing from Gandhinagar.” “The bridge was on a cable and there was no greasing or greasing of the cable. From where the wire broke, the wire was rusted. If the cable had been repaired, this incident would not have happened. No documentation of what work and how it was done has been preserved. The material procured/used, if its quality is checked, remains to be examined,” Zala said. Public prosecutor HS Panchal later told The Indian Express that the investigation so far showed that the contractors “were not qualified engineers” and “the construction work was done by them”. Panchal said that “the investigation shows that the bridge may have collapsed because of the aluminum planks on the bridge.” GK Raval, a lawyer from Surendranagar, appeared for the four men whose custody is sought – managers Parekh and Dineshbhai Mahasukhrai Dave, contractors Prakashbhai Laljibhai Parmar and Devangbhai Prakashbhai Parmar. The Oreva Group has been working on the bridge since 2008. (Express Photo by Nirmal Harindran) Raval told the court that Parekh had no role in ascertaining the safety of the bridge. At this point, Parekh approached the judge and said that he handled graphic design and was a media manager at the company. “Everyone worked very hard, from the CEO of the company to the lower level employees, but it was God’s will (Bhagwan ni ichcha) that such an unfortunate event happened,” Parekh said. Raval argued that the contractors were only responsible for handling the works like welding, electrical installation etc. and they did so based on the goods they received. The prosecution, while attributing the role of the arrested ticket and security officers as limited to “failure to control the crowd”, did not seek further detention, arguing that they were “not trained” staff. While the prosecution said the two Oreva directors were responsible for looking after the contract relating to the repair and maintenance of the bridge and were also involved in renovation work, the defense lawyer said the two directors had “no role to play with respect to verify the suitability of the bridge”. Meanwhile, the Morbi Bar Association passed a “unanimous” resolution on Tuesday asking its member advocates not to represent “any of the accused persons related to the incident”.
