The Bombay high court on Tuesday imposed a cost of Rs25,000 on the state government for failing to comply with court orders passed earlier regarding grant of compensation to 2011 triple blast victims.
A division bench of justices Abhay Oka and Girish Kulkarni directed the state to pay the amount by October 13 and posted the hearing of the public interest litigation (PIL) then.
The court imposed the cost after the government sought an adjournment for filing an affidavit giving details of the victims compensated and whether any more were remaining to be paid. Chief secretary Swadheen Kshatriya, who was told to remain present in court, also failed to do so on Tuesday.
Advocate Rahul Kadam, appearing for the petitioner, Prakash Sheth, said, "The court had specifically kept the matter for hearing post lunch today and directed the chief secretary to remain present. However, when the matter was called out, it was informed that Kshatriya was not there and no affidavit was filed. The court then posted the matter for hearing post court working hours and directed the secretary to remain present, but the situation remained the same even then. Hence, the order was passed."
The bench, in its order, observed, "The government is consistently not following court orders. The present matter is (a) very serious one... We want to see if other victims of blast are compensated, but the court has not filed any affidavit to the same. The petitioners have raised a very important issue... this needs to be taken seriously by the government."
The directions were given during the hearing of a PIL by a jeweller from Zaveri Bazar, who pleaded that the kin of four victims from Thane and Ulhasnagar be given compensation as soon as possible. Advocate Kadam said the families of Himmatbhai Gadia, Baburam Das and Bhupatbhai Navadia of Thane, and Lalchand Ahuja of Ulhasnagar had not received the compensation till date. There were others too, who had not been given the compensation, he said.
A total 26 people were killed and 130-odd injured in the coordinated explosions at Zaveri Bazar, Opera House and Dadar (West). In August, the HC had directed the collector, Thane, to disburse compensation of Rs3 lakh, announced by the central government, to the victims within four weeks. The amount has to be disbursed along with interest from October 18, 2011, the date on which the Centre announced the compensation. The government has made the payments but not filed a compliance report yet.
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