Delhi High Court
– Photo : Amar Ujala
Expansion
The High Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to pay interest within six weeks on the belated compensation to a victim of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The court said the appellant and his family had to suffer first at the hands of the rioters and then due to the insensitive and callous administration.
This interest will be payable from April 8, 2016, when the ex-gratia compensation of Rs 1 lakh was issued and January 16, 2006, when the rehabilitation policy was announced. This period has been asked to be paid at an annual interest rate of 10 percent. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, while considering the victim’s appeal against the order of a single judge, also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on the Central Government, which said that he was not entitled to interest. The appellant claimed that after the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, his house in Shahdara was vandalized and looted and his father lodged an FIR with the police. The screening committee, after examining the claims of the appellant as per the court orders, recommended payment of ex-gratia compensation of Rs 1 lakh in 2015, which was paid in April 2016.
The bench said that though the policy granting ex-gratia compensation did not include any component of interest on delayed payment, it could be granted by the court in appropriate cases. Indeed, the policy which was brought in for rehabilitation of the 1984 riot victims cannot be rendered redundant. In this case the appellant and his family had suffered a lot at the hands of the rioters exactly 40 years ago and the appellant again had to suffer at the hands of an insensitive and callous administration and had to approach the constitutional courts four times for redressal of his grievances.
