SOBHA DEVI Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner's husband died on 29.6.2004, for which incident Kinjer P.S. Case No. 35 of 2004 was instituted under Sections 435, 427/34 of the Indian Penal Code, read with Section 27 of the Arms Act and Section 17 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. What had happened was that undisputedly extremists/terrorists made indiscriminate firing and torched a Marshal Jeep bearing registration No. BR-25-2274. Petitioner's husband was at the place of occurrence and tried to extinguish the fire, but Petrol Tank of the jeep exploded. Petitioner's husband suffered extensive third degree burn injury and died later. Under the Policy of the Government dated 9.8.2000, petitioner claimed compassionate appointment. The policy provided that any person, who was victim of terrorist or extremist action, his family members would get certain benefits from the State. The benefits included payment of ex-gratia to the family members and in the event of death compassionate appointment to a dependent family member.

(2.) It is regrettable that though this is a benevolent step taken by the welfare State, the executive Government takes upon itself to become hyper-technical in the matter denying genuine and legitimate expectations of the people. The Collector-cum-District Magistrate, Arwal, who was to decide, held that the husband of the petitioner was not killed in direct extremists action, but as a consequence thereof and, thus, the benevolent grants and compassionate appointment as per Government policy were not available to the petitioner. This decision, whether right or wrong, ought to have been taken immediately in the year 2004 itself but belying all hopes it got delayed and it was ultimately rejected in 2008. Being aggrieved by the said decision disentitling the petitioner totally, she filed a writ petition before this Court being C.W.J.C. No. 2954 of 2008, which was heard and disposed of by judgment and order dated 30.4.2010 (Annexure-6 to this writ petition). This Court held that the State had taken a myopic view forgetting the true intention of the scheme and the policy. This Court further held that State is not permitted to take technical pleas to reject the legitimate expectations of the people. State is estopped from raising such pleas. Noticing that the matter had already got delayed, it was then remanded to the Collector-cum-District Magistrate, Arwal, for fresh consideration in accordance with that judgment.

(3.) It may be noted that the judgment of this Court was dated 30.4.2010, but State did not bring to the notice of this Court that on 17.2.2010 State had revised its policy in this regard, otherwise, this Court would have dealt with that policy and its implication in the said writ petition itself, saving the petitioner from further harassment and wasting the time of the executive and this Court all over again. The policy, which came on 17.2.2010, is part of Annexure-9 and this policy has 'been challenged by a separate interlocutory application in this writ petition. The change, that has been brought about in this policy is that this policy, has done away with the provision of offering compassionate appointment and it has enhanced the ex-gratia payment. Paragraph 5 of the said policy has gone step further and said that except for compassionate appointment, the old policy would continue to operate and apply so far as incidents prior to this policy dated 17.2.2010 came into effect. The effect is that for incidents that took place prior to this policy and where people had become entitled for compassionate appointments and compassionate appointments were not made, they would become disentitled to the same. The reasonableness of this part has been challenged before this Court in this writ-petition.