New Delhi: A Delhi court on Monday took cognisance of the charge sheet and issued summonses against six Delhi University professors in the 2010 Mayapuri Radiation
case which claimed one life and left seven others injured after exposure to radioactive material in a scrap market.
Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen took cognisance of the charge sheet, which was under consideration since September last year and issued the summonses to the six accused for
March 12.
The Delhi Police had filed the charge sheet in September, accusing six Delhi University professors of endangering lives by auctioning a radioactive gamma irradiator without
following mandatory precautions.
The charge sheet has named the then Head of Chemistry Department V S Parmar and the then Dean of Sciences Roop Lal as accused.
Besides them, Rakesh Kumar, Ramesh Chandra Rastogi, Ashok Prasad and Rita Kakkar have also been charge-sheeted under various penal provisions dealing with causing death by rash
and negligent acts and causing grievous hurt.
The irradiator was sold in the scrap market in violation of the rules of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) which says any chemical product emitting radiations cannot be
auctioned and disposed of without following mandatory regulations, the charge sheet said.
One person had died and seven people were critically injured in April 2010 after they were exposed to radiation when they cut open a Cobalt-60 irradiator at Mayapuri scrap market here.
The irradiator was traced to the varsity`s Chemistry Department. The police had said two committees, comprising university professors, were set up before the irradiator was decided to be auctioned.
The first committee was set up to find out which materials were of no use to the university and could be sold and the second committee was formed to auction the waste products, the charge sheet said. The six accused professors were part of those committees and had recommended the auctioning, it said.
PTI
