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13. In this petition, we are called upon to determine what, if any, safety standards schools should have and how, if at all, schools have not met those standards.

14. The National Building Code of India, 2005, promulgated by the Bureau of Indian Standards, provides detailed instructions on how to construct fire-safe buildings. Tables and drawings set standard for schools particularly, including number and type of fire extinguishers, quantity of water necessary for a proper fire suppression system, and many more, providing an engineer-tested, nationally applicable set of standards that our schools could follow. In the introductory materials for the Code, the Bureau of Indian Standards affirms the petitioner's claim in this case:

16. 27 States and Territories have filed affidavits in this Court detailing the current safety of their schools and plans for improvement. The States admit that many schools do not meet self-determined safety standards, let alone the more rigorous standards of the National Building Code. The affidavits generally focus on plans for improvement, rather than schools' current conditions, because much work remain. Where States have provided detailed counts of schools and installed safety features, it emerges that thousands of schools lack any fire suppression equipment. Thousands more schools do not have adequate emergency egress or non-inflammable roofs. Unfortunately, most States failed to provide any quantitative data in their affidavits. Instead these States filed vague plans for future renovations and piecemeal schemes to improve schools safety. Little technical advice informs some of the plans, and few have any admitted force of law or fail-safe or follow-up mechanism from the State Government.

17. While we applaud States' efforts to improve schools, we find that States have done too little, too late. With the guidance of the National Building Code and affidavits in this case, we view Mr. Gonsalves's brief as crystallizing a minimum set of safety standards for schools. By their own admission, States have not met these standards and they have welcomed this Court's guidance in achieving improvement. We will consider in more detail the exact standards required and relief sought later in this view. It is clearly borne out from the affidavits filed by the respondents that even the basic fire extinguishing equipments have not been installed in most of the schools. Majority of the schools do not have emergency exits. The schools must realize and properly comprehend the importance of the fire safety equipments, but unfortunately most of the schools do not have fire extinguishing equipments and consequently, the schools are not following the minimum safety standards prescribed by the Building Code, the Bureau of Indian Standards.

18. Despite best intentions and frequent agreements, these codes and safety standards rarely bind builders in law or practice. State or local governments must enact Building Codes before any may have the force of law. Some Building Codes exist in law, but few states or municipalities have enacted a standard as rigorous as the National Building Code. Weak enforcement often then moots the enacted code's effectiveness, no matter the Code's intent, whether fire safety officials, routinely speak to the need for meaningful standards with real enforcement.