The Supreme Court on Friday sought response from the Centre, East India Hotels (owner of Oberoi Trident), India Hotels Company (owner of Hotel Taj) and others on a petition seeking mandatory security regulations in star category hotels, which are soft targets for terror attacks due to easy access.
A Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan asked the department of tourism, the Maharashtra government, East India Hotels Ltd (EIHL), India Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL) to file their replies to the petition filed by four petitioners?Sarla S Parekh and Sevanti Parekh, Vijay Kumar Motilal Agarwal and Srichand D Chhabria?who have lost their close ones in the Mumbai terror attacks.
Seeking a direction for framing enough security measures in all public places and adequate compensation to kins of victims, the petition filed by the parents of the victims of 26/11 Mumbai terror attack of 2008 has alleged that the Centre and others had failed to protect people from such acts of terrorism and are liable to compensate the legal heirs of the victims.
As a cost-cutting measure, EIHL and IHCL had allegedly failed to deploy adequate security personnel and equipment, it alleged.
Counsel Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the petitioners, pointed out the need to have public liability insurance policy in place for all the hotels to provide compensation to the victims of such attacks.
The petitioners alleged that the Oberoi and Taj Hotels had knowledge about prior warnings about such terror attacks, but they failed to provide adequate security measures.
The PIL said that although the department had framed Guidelines for Approval and Classification Re-classification of Hotels which contains checklist for facilities and services to be provided by hotels, the provisions are grossly inadequate to deal with emergency situations like terrorist attacks.
It said that the time was ripe to for the government to take appropriate steps to ensure that hotels have indepth, comprehensive, integrated security programme to provide safe environment for its guests.
Stating that the hotels are liable to pay compensation to the injured and kins of the deceased, Arora said that the Oberoi and Taj Hotels were insured under the Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991, but were not disclosing the names of the insurance companies with which they are insured. She submitted that there should be some guidelines for internal security in the hotels to provide safety and security to the guests and hotels staff should also be trained to meet such exigencies.
