A five-storey paying guest (PG) accommodation for boys crumbled in Southwest Delhi’s Satya Niketan. (File Photo)The Delhi police has told the Delhi High Court that the owners of the building that collapsed at Satya Niketan in Southwest Delhi that killed seven people, had not engaged “qualified” persons for structural changes made to the building.The police said that the probe also found that the operators of Hostel Daze, the paying guest facility which was being run from the building, too failed to take “appropriate precautions, despite construction/alteration/structural work being carried out in the building”.The submissions were made in a status report filed by the police on September 21 in response to a PIL by Delhi University law student Aniket Kumar Gupta. He has sought an immediate safety audit of private paying guest and hostel accommodations in Satya Niketan, which caters mainly to students from DU’s South Campus. The Delhi HC had earlier sought status reports from the police on the probe.Also Read | ‘I can’t live with the fear of dying’: Students leave PGs in collapsed Delhi hostel localityAccording to the police, owners Urmila Gupta, her husband Hari Ram Gupt and their son Mahesh Gupta — who are among the accused in the case — did not only fail to obtain requisite permissions for structural changes to the building, they had also additionally “engaged an unprofessional and unqualified Rajmistri/contractor, namely accused Sanoj, for carrying out the said work”.“They had not engaged or sought the advice of any qualified structural engineer, architect or other competent expert for undertaking the structural modifications in the old building,” the police said.Also Read | I lived in Satya Niketan. The building collapse is not a surprise“…it was further revealed that accused Sanoj had engaged two unqualified laborers for carrying out the repair/structural modification work. Accused Sanoj, being an unprofessional and unqualified rajmistri, failed to take adequate safety precautions during the repair/modification work carried out in the old building. It is further revealed that neither accused Sanoj nor the building owners obtained the opinion of any qualified architect/structural expert before undertaking the said work, ” police said.Must Read | Satya Niketan tragedy and the normalisation of planning failurePolice said while the “precise role and responsibility” of each of the six accused is being ascertained, they have also found further lapses on the part of the building owners.Story continues below this ad“It has further been found during investigation that no land-use conversion permission had been obtained by the said persons. The premises were being commercially let out without obtaining the requisite permissions from the competent authorities,” police also said. Sohini Ghosh is a Senior Correspondent at The Indian Express. Previously based in Ahmedabad covering Gujarat, she recently moved to the New Delhi bureau, where she primarily covers legal developments at the Delhi High Court Professional Profile Background: An alumna of the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), she previously worked with ET NOW before joining The Indian Express. Core Beats: Her reporting is currently centered on the Delhi High Court, with a focus on high-profile constitutional disputes, disputes over intellectual property, criminal and civil cases, issues of human rights and regulatory law (especially in the areas of technology and healthcare). Earlier Specialty: In Gujarat, she was known for her rigorous coverage in the beats of crime, law and policy, and social justice issues, including the 2002 riot cases, 2008 serial bomb blast case, 2016 flogging of Dalits in Una, among others. She has extensively covered health in the state, including being part of the team that revealed the segregation of wards at the state’s largest government hospital on lines of faith in April 2020. With Ahmedabad being a UNESCO heritage city, she has widely covered urban development and heritage issues, including the redevelopment of the Sabarmati Ashram Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025) Her recent reporting from the Delhi High Court covers major political, constitutional, corporate, and public-interest legal battles: High-Profile Case Coverage She has extensively covered the various legal battles - including for compensation under the aegis of North East Delhi Riots Claims Commission - pertaining to the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, as well as 1984 anti-Sikh riots. She has also led coverage at the intersection of technology and governance, and its impact on the citizenry, from, and beyond courtrooms — such as the government’s stakeholder consultations for framing AI-Deepfake policy. Signature Style Sohini is recognized for her sustained reporting from courtrooms and beyond. She specialises in breaking down dense legal arguments to make legalese accessible for readers. Her transition from Gujarat to Delhi has seen her expand her coverage on regulatory, corporate and intellectual property law, while maintaining a strong commitment to human rights and lacuna in the criminal justice system. X (Twitter): @thanda_ghosh ... Read More