Taking a serious view, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board on Thursday slapped a notice on Delhi University to explain how safety rules were violated after the radiation exposure in a Delhi scrap market was traced to its Chemistry department.
Delhi University has been given two times to respond to the show-cause notice.
Vice-Chancellor Prof Deepak Pental in the meantime said the university took "moral responsibility and was very "apologetic" for what happened and the damages caused.
Panic had gripped Mayapuri in the first week of April when 11 people were admitted to hospitals after they were exposed to radiation in a scrap market. A worker in the scrap shop from where the Cobalt 60 was discovered had also died due to exposure to radiation whose origin was a mystery for days.
"We have given two weeks time to the university to provide its explanation," Chairman, AERB S S Bajaj told PTI In Mumbai.
The show cause notice is a first step taken by AERB after the Delhi Police yesterday said it had traced the origin of the radioactive Cobalt-60 found in Delhi's Mayapuri scrap market to a laboratory in Delhi University's Chemistry Department, where it was lying unused for the last 25 years
"We have issued a show cause notice to explain about the unauthorised disposal of radioactive cobalt 60 source from one of its labs as scrap thus violating the safe disposal of radioactive waste rules and radiation protection rules," Bajaj said.
"We are also suspending permission to use all the radioactive sources which the university holds," he said.
"Once we get a reply from the University in two weeks, we will take the next step of punishment under the Atomic Energy Act," he said.
AERB could find that the University was given authorisation for the gamma cell by the then Directorate of Radiation Protection in January 1970 of the Department of Atomic Energy, he said.
"Negligence was there. Radioactive materials should be disposed off in controlled condition. Strict guidelines have been formulated by Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. It appears DU has not followed it," a senior Delhi police official said.
Pental admitted there had been "negligence" as the radioactive substance found its way out of the university's Chemistry Department to the scrap market.
"We have to go into it and inquire into this--in a very systematic method to find out where was the negligence, when the source was brought, with whose permission the source was bought and who was using it", he said in New Delhi.
According to a former Radiation Safety professional of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, there has been no conviction so far over radiation safety violation. The Delhi incident is purely a case amounting to culpable homicide to be charged under criminal proceedings, he said.
AERB has so far been sending notices to those who are violating the Atomic Energy Act and at the most withdrawing their licences or suspending the licences till the agencies complied with safety norms. PTI
