SC to hear plea for grant of uniform compensation to victims of hate crime

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on April 23 a plea seeking uniformity in granting compensation to the victims of hate crime and mob lynching.

The apex court had in April 2023 sought responses from the Centre, states and Union Territories (UTs) on the petition filed by ‘Indian Muslim for Progress and Reforms’ (IMPAR).

It had asked the Centre, states and UTs to apprise the court of the steps taken for formulating a scheme for providing relief to the families of victims of mob lynching, as directed by the top court in the 2018 verdict in Tehseen Poonawala case.

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According to the cause list of April 23 uploaded on the top court’s website, a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih is slated to hear the matter.

During the hearing before the top court in April 2023, the petitioner’s counsel had said some states had framed schemes pursuant to the 2018 verdict but there was no uniformity, while many states still did not have any such scheme.

The plea said the petitioner was praying for an order or direction to bring in uniformity in the grant of compensation to the victims of hate crimes and mob lynching as the present practice of granting ex-gratia amounts by various states was discriminatory and contrary to the provisions of Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.

It said the petitioner also prays for an order directing the states and UTs to provide just, fair and reasonable compensation to the victims of hate crime and mob lynching following the scheme framed by them in compliance with the apex court’s 2018 direction.

The petition flagged the alleged “whimsical, discriminatory and arbitrary approach” adopted by the states in the grant of ex-gratia to the victims of hate crime and mob lynching and the “meagre” compensation provided to them.

The plea said the compensation awarded by the states in most cases depended on extraneous factors like “media coverage, political imperatives and the victim’s religious identity”.

“It is seen that the trend of awarding compensation to the victims of hate crime/ mob lynching is decided based on the religious affiliation of the victims. In some cases, where the victims belong to other religious denominations, huge compensation is awarded for their losses, while in other cases where the victim belongs to a minority community, the compensation is woefully inadequate,” it claimed.

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