GURUGRAM: Chintels India CMD Ashok Solomon and seven others were named by the CBI in a supplementary chargesheet it filed before a Panchkula court on Tuesday in the probe into the collapse of flats at Paradiso, the Sector 109 housing society, in February 2022 in which two residents died.
Two more Chintels executives, former CEO D Vasudevan and project manager Kuldeep Kumar Kaul, were charged by the CBI after a yearlong investigation since it took over the probe from Gurgaon police on January 17 last year.
The others named include Nitin Bhayana, director of Paradiso’s civil contractor Bhayana Builders, its project director Gaurav Suri and general manager (projects) Ashok Kumar, and project management consultant Piedmont’s CEO Sanjay Trikha and general manager Soumen Sarkar.
All eight were charged under sections 304A (causing death by negligence) and 337 (causing hurt by an act endangering life or personal safety of others) read with Section 36 (fraudulently inducing persons to invest money) of the IPC. The court granted them bail. Laying the blame for lapses that compromised construction quality at the door of Bhayana Builders, the CBI stated in its chargesheet that the company, as Paradiso’s civil contractor, was responsible for quality of all materials, workmanship and supply of water, which was found to be high in chlorides that led to a weakening of the building’s concrete structures.The CBI stated it had found during its inquiry that Nitin Bhayana had installed an RO plant at the Paradiso site in August 2011 and a chemical dosing plant in September 2012 for treatment of sewage treatment plant water that is used for construction. “However, the RO plant was not used regularly during day construction and never used during night construction work,” the agency said in the chargesheet, adding the RO was not used at all for treatment of water after the dosing plant was installed. On the Chintels CMD, the chargesheet stated, “Ashok Solomon remained negligent in performance of his duty as CMD to supervise the key personnel deployed/appointed for construction of buildings, resulting in partial collapse, death of two persons.”
A portion of the living rooms of five flats caved in vertically at Tower D of Paradiso on the evening of February 10, 2022, killing Sunita Shrivastava and Rekha Bhardwaj. The Haryana government asked IIT Delhi to carry out a structural audit of Paradiso. The investigation found the presence of high amounts of chloride in concrete, which were found to have accelerated corrosion throughout the building.
The chlorides were likely present in one of the raw materials used to produce the concrete, the IIT report concluded. The source, according to the CBI, is water that was not properly treated. The CBI had on February 28 last year filed its first chargesheet under 304A, 337, 288 (negligent conduct with respect to pulling down or repairing a building) and other sections of the IPC against Sanjay Kumar Sharma, the facility manager of Chintels, and Amit Austin of Manish Switchgear, the company engaged for repairs at a sixth floor flat in Tower D that triggered the collapse.
A spokesperson for Chintels told TOI on Tuesday, “We are happy that justice is working and have full faith in the investigative agencies, judicial system and administration. The fact that Bhayana Builders was fully responsible for the quality of construction work and materials, including water, has now been confirmed in the probe. We are also waiting for the government to ensure that the concerned residents vacate immediately as the Supreme Court has ordered and the authorities have already enforced the Disaster Management Act so that we can begin the process of demolition and rebuilding.”
Chintels has struck a buyback settlement with 141 Paradiso residents, of whom 115 have been fully paid. The company is in advanced talks with Edifice, which brought down the Supertech twin towers in Noida, for the demolition.
