NEW DELHI:
The Delhi High Court has directed the Centre to compensate the sole survivor of a fake encounter by the Delhi police in Connaught Place 25 years ago. The court asked the Centre to pay ₹15 lakh to the victim, Tarun Preet Singh, with an eight percent interest from the time of the incident.
Justice Prathiba M. Singh said that the compensation ought to have been paid to Mr Singh, way back in 1997 itself, as he received the injuries at the hands of policemen who were acting in their official capacity.
“Injury caused due to the state action, and that too one, where the police officials were convicted of criminal offences and not some inaction or negligence, needs to be considered at a higher standard compared to those of ordinary cases of negligence and inaction,” the High Court said.
The incident
On March 31, 1997, ten Delhi policemen opened fire on a blue sedan car at Barakhamba Road, near Connaught Place, killing two of its three occupants — Pradeep Goyal and Jagjit Singh and injuring Mr. Tarun Preet Singh. The policemen had mistaken one of the persons in the car to be a notorious criminal, Mohammed Yasin.
Following a trial, on October 27, 2007, the 10 police officials were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. This conviction was upheld by the High Court in September 2009 and subsequently by the Supreme Court in May 2011.
Mr. Singh, who still has shrapnel in the body and a slight disability in his right hand, had filed a petition for compensation of ₹1 crore in 1998. However, he was only awarded Rs. 1 lakh as compensation in 1999.
Traumatising experience
While awarding the compensation to Mr. Singh, the High Court noted that Mr. Singh spent the prime of his life — almost 25 years — as a victim of the incident. The court remarked that Mr. Singh continues to live with shrapnel in his body, which by itself can be traumatising.
Any compensation awarded to him ought to take care not just of his present condition but of any future complications that may arise, the court added.
“The time that has lapsed obviously ought to go in favour of the Petitioner [Mr Singh]. He has lost his entire period of youth, being embroiled in proceedings relating to the incident. The mental trauma for such a person cannot simply be gauged,” the High Court remarked.
“For a young boy of 20 years of age, the suffering of any kind of disability due to no fault of his cannot be justified or trivialised,” the court said, awarding an additional compensation of ₹2 lakh to Mr. Singh to meet his litigation costs.
