The
Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday June 25,2014 ordered an interim compensation
of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of 24 students of a Hyderabad
engineering college, who were washed away in Beas river.
The compensation will be jointly paid by the dam and the college management.
A
division bench of Himachal HC, which treated a media report as public
interest litigation, ordered the Larji Dam authorities and the VNR
Vigyan Jyoti Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad, to pay
Rs 5 lakh per victim as interim compensation.
"We
deem it proper to exercise the guess work and award, by way of interim
measure, Rs 5 lakh each in favour of the parents of each of the
students, which shall be borne by the Institute and H.P. State
Electricity Board Limited in equal shares, i.e. 50 per cent each. The
amount be deposited by or before the next date (July 9)," the division
bench comprising Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir, Chief Justice and Justice
Tarlok Singh Chauhan observed.
The HC,
besides the Larji dam authorities and officials (run by the H.P. State
Electricity Board Limited), also held the staff of the VNR Vigyan Jyoti
Institute of Engineering and Technology equally responsible in the
matter.
"We are of the view that, prima facie, there is evidence for holding
that respondents have performed their duties negligently and because of
their utter carelessness, callousness and negligence, 24 budding
Engineers have lost their lives," the court observed.
On June 9, the Himachal Pradesh HC had taken suo motu cognizance of the incident.
The interim order came
after the state and the V.N.R. Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering
and Technology filed a status report in connection with the case in the
court on Tuesday June 24,2014
No comments:
Post a Comment