Gujarat high court on Wednesday pulled up the government in connection with compensation to 56 shops.
A week after it passed strictures against the state government for non-restoration of religious places destroyed in the communal mayhem of 2002, Gujarat high court on Wednesday pulled up the government in connection with compensation to 56 shops.
These 56 shops were allegedly gutted during the 2002 communal riots in Rakhial area of the city, but the owners are yet to receive any compensation.
A bench of Justice Akil Kureshi and Justice CL Soni issued notices asking why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against the state government and Ahmedabad district collector for failing to obey the HC order. Further hearing of the case will be conducted on March 14.
The court issued notices over a petition filed by Jan Sangharsh Manch (JSM) on behalf of one Mohammad Aslam Sheikh and 56 others who lost their shops at Sundaramngar near NH-8 in Rakhial.
“We had filed a petition seeking initiation of action under contempt of court against the state government and district collector as they did not obey the high court ruling of September 15 last year,” said Utpala Bora, the counsel who appeared in the case along with senior counsel Mukul Sinha.
The owners of 56 shops had applied for compensation after the Centre announced additional relief package for riot victims in February 2008.
As there was no response from the district authorities, they moved the high court seeking direction to the collector to consider their applications for compensations. Based on their applications, the court had passed an order in September last year, directing the collector to examine their applications for compensations.
Bora further said, “On February 2, we received a communication from the collector’s office that all the 56 applications had been dismissed in August 2011. We were surprised to get the communication as the collector’s office did not inform the court when it disposed of the petition on September 15, 2011. Hence, we sought actions against the authorities.”
Earlier, on February 8, the high court, had in a scathing indictment of the Modi government, termed the 2002 riots as “negligence of the state” and censured it for “inaction”, holding that it had resulted in an “anarchic” situation.
The court passed strictures against the government while ordering it to pay for restoration of 500-odd religious structures destroyed during the riots. A petition had been filed by Islamic Relief Committee of Gujarat.
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