With the toll in the Lalita Park building collapse rising to 67, the Delhi government on Wednesday announced a judicial inquiry into the tragedy, which will be conducted by a former Delhi high court judge, Mr Lokeshwar Prasad, and completed in three months.

The MCD, meanwhile, has declared 38 buildings unsafe in the locality and given their residence notice of 24 hours to evacuate them.
The owner of the collapsed building, Amritpal Singh Sachdeva, was produced before a city court, which remanded him to two days in police custody. The accused also went on to claim proximity with Delhi urban development minister A.K. Walia, who swiftly denied the allegation. Rescue and relief work at the site was hampered by the spell of rain which lashed the area for over two hours.
Officials said the only death reported on Wednesday was from the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital. No more injured persons or bodies were recovered from the site of the collapse.
Announcing the judicial inquiry, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit said: “The decision was taken in the wake of the scale of the mishap, the large number of casualties and a number of complex issues connected with the incident.”
The terms of reference for the one-man commission are: determining the immediate causes for the collapse; determining circumstances and sequence of events leading to the collapse; determining the number of victims, both dead and injured; determining administrative, procedural, and statutory lapses, if any;
fixing responsibility, both individual and institutional; assessing the response of various relief and rehabilitation agencies — whether these were timely, effective and efficient; indicating measures required to improve the responses; and making recommendations on preventive and penal measures required to prevent the recurrence of such incidents in the future.
The MCD, after carrying out an initial survey, has declared 38 buildings in the Lalita Park area unsafe and asked residents to evacuate them within 24 hours. The basements of these buildings were filled with water, the MCD officials said. The residents, however, complained that notice of 24 hours was too short for them to be able to make other arrangements.
Builder Amritpal Singh, talking to reporters at the Kakardooma courts where was produced, said: “I have not bribed anyone. I told all ministers personally about the details of the building. The reports of me bribing officials to get a no-objection certificate are completely false.” As reports of his proximity to Dr Walia began doing the rounds on a couple of television channels, Dr Walia categorically denied any connection with Mr Singh.
In a statement, Dr Walia said the allegations were “mischievous” and “far from the truth”. Amritpal had no meeting with the minister in recent months and there was thus no question of his informing Dr Walia about accumulation of water in the basement, a source close to the minister said.
In the court, Amritpal’s counsel argued that he could be booked only under Section 304A IPC (causing death due to negligence) and not under Section 304 IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder). The court, however, remanded him to two-day police custody. The police had claimed that this was necessary for recovery of documents related to the building’s construction.
Following showers on Wednesday afternoon, rescue work at the site of the collapse was severely hit. MCD officials present there claimed the work was likely to be completed by the night. “We have asked for more trucks from Jehangirpuri. If they arrive by evening, the work of debris removal shall be over by tonight,” an MCD official said, adding that the rain did not affect the work much.
“No injured persons or bodies were recovered. The National Disaster Response Force men have already scanned the site and allowed removal of debris from the site,” the official said.