New Delhi, April 9
The Supreme Court today asked the widow of a Punjab human right activist to take up the matter of granting equal compensation to the kin of all persons “cremated unlawfully” by the state police during militancy with the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice R.V. Raveendran told senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, appearing for Paramjit Kaur Khalara who raised the issue, to approach the NHRC for clarification whether its two orders on compensation pertained to only custodial deaths or covered the illegal cremation also.

The probe into the custodial deaths and illegal cremation in Punjab by the CBI was ordered by the apex court in 1996 on a petition of Paramjit Kaur, who had sent a letter about the missing of her husband Jasjit Singh Khalra, a human right activist, after he had raised the issue of custodial deaths and illegal cremation during the militancy in the state.

The NHRC had awarded a compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh to the kin of each victim identified on the basis of their arrest and allegedly killed in police custody and Rs 1.75 lakh to each who though were identified on the basis of their being picked up by the police, yet may not have been be formally arrested but were allegedly killed in fake encounters and then cremated without informing their family members.

Gonsalves wanted a direction from the Supreme Court to the NHRC for awarding equal compensation for the kin of all victims cremated without informing their family members whether they were in police custody or not, claiming that the rights panel had not dealt with the twin issue properly.

He said in its two orders on awarding the compensation, the NHRC had not drawn a distinction between custodial deaths and illegal cremation while fixing different amounts of compensation.

“They, in fact, have given compensation only to those who were in police custody… there was not a word about the compensation for illegal cremation in the two orders passed by the NHRC,” he claimed.

The court told Gonsalves that since the matter of deciding the compensation had been entirely left by it to the NHRC, he could approach the commission for clarification whether its order was concerned only to custodial deaths or also included the unlawful cremation.

The apex court had ordered a CBI inquiry on unlawful cremation of 2,097 persons in different districts of Punjab during the militancy after receiving Paramjit Kaur’s letter.

The agency, in its report, had said that 585 victims were clearly identified, 247 were partly identified on the basis that they were at some point of time picked up by the police and 1,238 remained unidentified because there were no records available about them.

The NHRC, which is seized of the matter, has so far awarded compensation to 194 persons, which Gonsalves termed as “inadequate”.

After the hearing, Gonsalves said he would move a fresh application before the NHRC’s new chairman, Justice Rajendra Babu, requesting the panel to have a fresh look at the entire case of awarding compensation to the kin of all victims on an equal footing.