Meghalaya: HC dismisses PIL on collapse of Assembly building dome 

SHILLONG: A division bench of the Meghalaya High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation concerning the collapse of the Meghalaya Assembly building dome, stating that it is up to the state government to take appropriate action in the matter.

"It is for the State to take appropriate action against the builder," the bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice WanluraDiengdoh stated in their order.

Furthermore, the court stated that a high-powered committee has been formed to investigate the cause of the dome's collapse and make recommendations for corrective action.

Conrad K Sangma, the Chief Minister of Meghalaya, recently stated that the Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati (IIT-G) will investigate the steel dome collapse of the Assembly building under construction.

The exact cause of the dome collapse is being investigated by a team of experts from IIT-Guwahati, who will soon conduct a technical audit of the structure.

As per report, On May 22, the 70-tonne steel dome of the under-construction Meghalaya assembly building at Mawdiangdiang in New Shillong Township collapsed. The dome collapsed due to a design flaw.

The construction of the new Assembly building began in 2019 and was expected to be completed in July of this year. The contract for this project was awarded to 'Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam (UPRNN) Ltd.' of Uttar Pradesh, with a total cost of Rs 127 crores.

It may be mentioned that the northeastern state lacks a permanent Assembly building, as the old wooden one from 1937 was burned to the ground in 2001.

The 60-member House is temporarily convening in an auditorium adjacent to the historic Brookside Bungalow, which was once the retreat of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.