M A I N   N E W S

New houses, jobs for Mirchpur victims in two months, Haryana assures SC
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, June 2
The Haryana Government today assured the Supreme Court that it would provide within two months new houses to Dalit families whose houses were damaged in the April 21 violence in Mirchpur village in Hisar district.

The state government also committed to provide employment to all violence-hit families under the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme or any other programme. Jobs would be given either in Mirchpur or nearby villages till the next hearing of the case on July 19.

Recording the assurances, a vacation Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and CK Prasad directed Hisar Deputy Commissioner Yudhbir Singh Khyalia, who was present in the court, to personally visit the Balmiki Temple near Connaught Place here to ascertain how many victims were staying there and to file a report within four weeks on his interaction.

It also directed the state Advocate General Hawa Singh Hooda to depute two advocates from his office within four weeks to visit Mirchpur and other places where the victims had migrated to and file a comprehensive report on the incident and the steps taken by the state administration for providing relief and rehabilitation to the families of the Balmiki community and also suggest measures for resettling the victims in their own village.

YS Khyalia, assisted by Additional Advocate General Manjit Singh Dalal, informed the court that the new houses would be constructed under the Indira Awaz Yojna. The Bench asked him to assure the victims staying in Delhi that nothing would happen to them if they returned to Mirchpur and that the government would take adequate steps to prevent such violence. The court would take a serious note if violence recurred in the village, the Bench warned in its oral remarks.

The court passed the order on a PIL filed by some of the victims. During arguments, the Bench said it was unfortunate that such incidents kept happening in Haryana as the state government was not sensitive to inter-caste violence. The state government should have conducted a thorough probe into the Mirchpur incident, rather than suspending the Station House Officer and the Naib Tehsildar, both of Narnaund, who were “at the bottom” of the administrative machinery, the court felt. The court resented the fact that the violence had been sparked off by a dog at a Balmiki Basti barking at some boys of the Jat community.

The court also expressed its displeasure over the different amounts of compensation to the families of the two persons killed in the arson. One victim was paid Rs 16 lakh and another Rs 5 lakh.

The AG sought to justify this stating that the higher amount was due to the number of dependents.