The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed a BJP leader’s plea challenging the announcement of compensation made by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi Government for people affected by the violence witnessed in North East district last week.
A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice C Hari Shankar, noted that the announcement pertaining to award of compensation is a policy decision and that it refuses to interfere with the government’s decision.
Kejriwal had last week announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the families of those who lost their lives and Rs 5 lakh each to the families of the minors who died in the Delhi violence.
The petition, filed by BJP leader Nand Kishore Garg through advocate Shashank Deo, said, “The revenue department of Govt. of NCT of Delhi has published notification through advertisement for irrational distribution of the public money as compensation to the victim of riots without identifying the victims and without assessing the losses of the property of the victims.”
Dubbing the scheme of the Kejriwal government as ‘entirely wrong’, the petitioner added, “The scheme classifies all the victims riots in the same categories, such as, violators of law and the victims of the riots. Hence, all victims cannot be entitled to alike amount of proposed ex-gratia and compensation amount and the announcement made by the Respondent No.1 is completely illegal and blatant misuse of the public money.”
The petitioner further sought directions for the Delhi government to make fresh announcement by incorporating mandatory conditions of identification of the real victims of riots before releasing the compensation amount.
Over 40 people lost their lives and 200 were left injured in clashes which took place between groups of anti and pro CAA protesters.