COMMUNAL RIOTS
Delhi High Court Judgement
On Compensation for 1984 Riot Victims
Summary of Judgement of Justice Anil Dev Singh, 5 July, 1996, in Civil Writ Petition 1429 of 1996
The State and the Union, as the case may be, will be well advised to locate the responsibility for the riots whenever and wherever they occur and the persons held responsible for the same should be made to pay compensation and the law should provide for confiscation of their properties so as to secure payment of compensation out of the assets so confiscated. In case it is found that an official or officials of the State did not act in time or were indifferent to mob violence, they should also be required to make reparations to the victims and face disciplinary proceedings.
Communal violence and riots keep on manifesting with alarming frequency. It is the State's obligation to create conditions where rights of individuals or group of persons under Article 21 are not and cannot be violated. There will be no use of the rights conferred by Article 21 if the State does not exact compliance of the same from its officials and functionaries and private persons. It is not open to the State to say that the violations are being committed by private persons for which it cannot be held accountable. Riots more often than not take place due to weakness, laxity, and indifference of the administration in enforcing law and order. If the authorities act in time and act effectively and efficiently, riots can surely be prevented.
Personal liberty is fundamental to functioning of our democracy. The State must shape the society so that the life and liberty of an individual is safe and is given supreme importance and value. Article 21 should serve its purpose of ensuring human dignity, human survival, and human development. It is a pulsating reality throbbing with life and spirit of liberty, and it must be made to reach out to every individual within the country. It is the duty and obligation of the State to enforce law and order. Its violation cannot and must not be tolerated or condoned. The sweep of Art. 21 is wide and far reaching.
Equality before law and equal protection of laws is ensured to all the communities who are equal members of the Indian society, by Article 14 of the Constitution. It is the duty of the State to create a climate where the cleavage between members of the society belonging to different faiths, castes, and creeds are eradicated. Like disease prevention, the State must take every precaution, measure and initiative to prevent terrorem populi of the magnitude represented by 1984 riots. In the event of an outbreak of riots, it must act swiftly to curb the same and not allow time to slip by. If it is not able to do all that then it cannot escape the liability to pay adequate compensation to the family of the person killed during riots as his or her life has been extinguished in clear violation of Article 21 of the Constitution which mandates that life cannot be taken away except according to the procedure established by law.
Riots are manifestations of the illness. There has been little or no effort to cure the illness.
Fundamental rights and directive principles of State policy have been founded on the bedrock of morality. human values and concept of justice. After about two years of Narain Singh's death, the Delhi Administration awoke to the need to compensate the petitioner Smt. Bhajan Kaur for her loss and made an ex-gratia payment of Rs. 20,000 to her. This compensation to a widow or the family of a person who lost his life during the riots is highly inadequate. It is a mockery of compensation for a riot victim. When a wife loses her husband, children their father, parents their son in a riot, it amounts to cruel joke to give Rs. 20,000 as financial aid to the family of a deceased. The very offer of such a sum would aggravate the pain and suffering, rather than reducing the same. The time when the blow is fresh, it is then that the family should receive adequate financial aid or compensation to tide over immediate financial crisis and look to the future with a glimmer of hope. It is true this the life of an individual cannot be compensated by payment of money. but at the same time, it relieves financial strain and alleviates the sufferings of the victims and their families. Financial aid of Rs.20,000 is grossly inadequate and is far from being just, fair and reasonable. I am of the opinion that the petitioner Smt. Bhajan Kaur should have been paid at least a sum of Rs. 2 lakhs as compensation. Since the petitioner has already been paid a sum of Rs. 20,000, the respondent (government) is directed to pay a sum of Rs. 1,80,000 with interest from October 1984 to the date of payment. This direction to pay enhanced compensation would be applicable to similar cases-to the families of the victims who lost their lives during the Delhi riots of 1984.
(Courtesy: PUCL Bulletin, August, 1996)
