Kerala High Court: A Division Bench comprising of Hrishikesh Roy, CJ. and Jayasankaran Nambiar, J., framed suggestions with regard to fixing of compensation for flood-affected victims of the State of Kerala.
The writ petition by way of PIL was filed with regard to the absence of any specific and uniform criteria for ascertaining the adequate amount of compensation to be granted by the respondent to the flood-affected victims of the State. It has been highlighted that the Kerala State Legal Services Authority would act as a catalyst to this process by enhancing effective and equitable distribution of compensation among the victims.
The orders issued by the respondent under the Disaster Management Department marks for the preliminary compensation amount with respect to affected residential houses based on the level of inundation with respect to every individual house.
Henceforth the Court suggested that a uniform formula that takes into account such factors that are applicable in common to the different categories of persons must be applied. These factors shall include the level of inundation, the extent of holding of a person in that area and improvements made in the said holding etc. and shall be applied irrespective of nature of holding of the victim or his income level. The minimum compensation that was common to all victims shall be paid to the identified victim solely based on his claim presented with response to the published formula devoid of any further scrutiny as to its genuineness by the respondent. Further the victims shall be compensated with respect to their individual losses determined on case to case basis backed by a proof as to the amount of loss sustained by each victim and as a result it would ensure greater transparency with regard to this additional compensation plus the victims would be spared from running behind authorities for the same. Also, this additional compensation has to be decided to keep in consideration different categories of flood victims i.e. householders, businessman, farmers etc. based on nature and extent of the loss suffered by them.
Accordingly, the method to be adopted by the respondent in deciding the amount of compensation shall be submitted to the court within 10 days from the date of judgment.[P.K. Firoz v. State of Kerala, W.P (C) No. 29127 of 2018, order dated 04-09-2018]
