Gauhati High Court: The present Public Interest Litigation raised a serious question regarding non-payment of compensation to the victims under the Assam Victim Compensation Scheme, 2012 (‘Scheme’). The Division Bench of Vijay Bishnoi, CJ., and Suman Shyam, J., while observing serious lack of coordination between the Home and Finance Department directed the Chief Secretary to the State of Assam to file an affidavit indicating as to why the required sum of money had not been made available for disbursement of compensation to the victims.
A previous order of this Court in regard to the disbursement of compensation to the victims under the Scheme revealed that Rs. 24,16,18,032 were required as funds for victim compensation by the Assam State Legal Services Authority (‘ASLSA’), but the State had not provided any funds for the year 2019-2020 to 2022-2023 and when the funds arrived in in the year 2023, only Rs. 9,00,00,000 were sent, which was much lower than what was needed. The Court had stated that the State had primary responsibility to provide the fund for disbursement of compensation to the victims.
The Court noted that during a joint meeting held between the Finance Department and the Law Department, it was agreed that the Law Department shall submit a proposal regarding funds which are required for the purpose of disbursing to the victims under the Scheme and the Finance Department will consider the same and will take effective steps for release of the requisite funds, however on the demand of around Rs. 44 Crores, only Rs. 9 Crores was provided to ASLSA.
The Court observed that there was a serious lack of coordination between the Home and Finance Department and thus, the Court directed the Chief Secretary to the State of Assam to file an affidavit indicating as to why the required sum of money had not been made available for disbursement of compensation to the victims under the Scheme while proposing steps to be taken to release the amount at the earliest.
[Sandeep Chamaria v. State of Assam, 2024 SCC OnLine Gau 724, Order dated 10-06-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioners: S. Chamaria, Petitioner-in-person
For the Respondents: Addl. Sr. Govt. Advocate D.K. Sarmah, S.C., Finance A. Chaliha, S.C., ALSA R.S. Chowdhury
