The court turned down an oral request from SG Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, MCD and Delhi Police, to allow the Delhi HC to continue dealing with the Satya Niketan collapse separately

Published on: Sep 8, 2026, 15:10:37 IST

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday indicated it may expand its court-monitored exercise against illegal constructions and unauthorised change of land use in Delhi to cover the safety of student accommodation, following the death of seven people in the collapse of an illegally constructed building being used as a paying guest facility in Satya Niketan.

A bench of justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R Mahadevan said it would urgently take up the issue on Thursday, after the amicus curiae sought an expansion of the ongoing inspection exercise to PG accommodations, private hostels and similar facilities around colleges and universities across Delhi.

The court turned down an oral request from Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, MCD and Delhi Police, to allow the Delhi High Court to continue dealing with the Satya Niketan collapse separately.

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When Mehta urged that the tragic incident not be mixed with the larger issue already pending before the Supreme Court, the bench disagreed.

“No. This might have been taken up in the right earnest but it is overlapping. We will take it up. We already have something in mind,” responded the bench.

Senior advocate Ajit Kumar Sinha, the court-appointed amicus curiae, told the bench that the latest status report highlighted the Satya Niketan tragedy and sought urgent directions as the inspection exercise ordered by the Supreme Court was already underway. Sinha is assisted by advocate-on-record Govind Jee.

The court said it would hear the matter on Thursday and indicated that it could subsequently consider transferring the proceedings pending before it into the Supreme Court.

The development assumes significance as the Supreme Court’s existing exercise, initiated against the backdrop of widespread violations of building bye-laws and land-use regulations in Delhi, had so far focussed on areas including Lajpat Nagar, Saket and Malviya Nagar. Satya Niketan was not among the localities covered by the inspection.

The amicus has now urged the court to extend the exercise across Delhi, particularly to student accommodation located around universities and colleges, where residential properties are frequently used as PGs or private hostels and may have undergone unauthorised additions or changes in use.

The latest status report records that a multi-storeyed building at P-14, Satya Niketan, collapsed on September 6. The property, spread over around 55 square yards, had a basement and four floors above the ground and was being used as a boys’ PG under the name Hostel Daze. Seven people were killed and at least 12 rescued.

The precise cause of the collapse is still under investigation, though preliminary material has indicated construction-related work in or around the basement and waterlogging immediately before the incident.

The amicus has proposed a time-bound inspection and safety audit of PGs, private hostels and similar student accommodation facilities across Delhi. The audit would examine sanctioned building plans against actual construction, the number of floors, basement construction and alterations, permissible land use, structural safety and fire-safety compliance, means of ingress and egress and whether the premises are in a dangerous or ruinous condition.

The report has also pointed to the recurrence of building collapses in Satya Niketan, noting that another building collapse in the locality in April 2022 had killed two people and injured four. It has questioned whether the existing system for inspecting buildings, identifying dangerous structures and enforcing building regulations is adequate to prevent such tragedies.

The urgency of the proposed expansion has also been underlined by the MCD’s action against an adjoining property at P-13, Satya Niketan, which it found to be in a dangerous condition. The civic body ordered demolition of the structure on September 6. Five MCD officials from the South Zone have also been suspended in connection with the tragedy.

The Supreme Court’s intervention comes alongside separate proceedings before the Delhi High Court, which on Monday directed the MCD to inspect within a week all PG hostels under its jurisdiction and ascertain whether they had been constructed with requisite permissions and whether there were violations of building bye-laws.

A bench of chief justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia also ordered an inquiry at the highest executive level into the Satya Niketan collapse and directed the MCD to identify officials responsible for any regulatory lapses. The high court had observed that responsibility for such mishaps did not prima facie lie only with the owner of the PG but also extended to university authorities and the MCD, which is responsible for ensuring that construction and development in Delhi complies with applicable building regulations.

The amicus has nevertheless placed the tragedy in the context of the larger Supreme Court proceedings, which began after the top court took note of widespread and blatant violations of building bye-laws and land-use regulations, including construction in prohibited areas and subsequent use of properties for purposes other than those for which they were sanctioned.

The court had in March indicated that the problem warranted monitoring on a pan-India basis and subsequently ordered an inspection of buildings in selected Delhi localities. That inspection was completed on September 3 and the committee is understood to have found certain buildings in Saidulajab, Saket and Lajpat Nagar to be in precarious or unsafe condition. Its report is expected to be placed before the Supreme Court shortly.

Against this backdrop, the amicus has asked the court to ensure that the inspection does not remain confined to a handful of localities but extends to establishments housing students, particularly around Delhi’s universities and colleges.

The request comes after the death of seven young people in a building that was allegedly being used in violation of the norms governing its construction and use, putting the spotlight once again on the gap between permissions on paper and the manner in which buildings are actually constructed and used in the national capital.

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