Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 26: In a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking compensation for LoC mine blast victims, Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice MM Kumar and Justice Tashi Rabstan today took serious note of non-filing of status report by the Deputy Commissioner Poonch and directed him to ensure compliance within two weeks or appear in person.
After hearing Advocates SS Ahmed and Deepika Singh Rajawat for the PIL whereas AAG Ravinder Sharma for the State and ASGI Sindhu Sharma appearing for the Union of India, DB observed, “this PIL pertains to payment of compensation to such persons who have suffered injuries due to mine blasts in Poonch”.
The Union of India has stated that the total number of cases reported since December 10, 2001 are 90 and the compensation has been paid to 44 victims and in respect of remaining 46 cases, 28 cases have been returned to Deputy Commissioner Poonch for obtaining details of the cases. Two cases have been forwarded to the higher authorities for processing the documents and in respect of 16 cases no information is available with the Army and the efforts are on to identify such cases by taking up the issue with the civil authorities, the DB said.
“Despite given sufficient time, Deputy Commissioner Poonch has not filed the latest status report. A document has been placed on record showing that the DC Poonch has sent nine cases for payment of ex-gratia compensation to the victims”, the DB observed, adding “it has been stated that DC Poonch could not file latest status report because of ongoing election process. Such an excuse is not acceptable because in important matter like one in hand DC cannot neglect the filing of the status report”.
With these observations, DB directed DC Poonch to file status report within two weeks or appear in person.
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