16 years after acid attack, High Court orders reconsideration of victim’s relief petition

Sixteen years after she suffered an acid attack that left her almost 60 per cent disabled and took away her vision in one eye, the Punjab and Haryana High Court set aside an order rejecting the survivor’s compensation plea.

The court found that the rejection was in violation of the compensation scheme and directed that her application be considered by the Criminal Injury Compensation Board.

The survivor, also a victim of sexual assault, was barely 26 years old when her life turned upside down on November 19, 2009. Employed in an educational institution and pursuing an MBA at the time, she was attacked with acid.

The main accused, a juvenile, was convicted in December 2015, while three others continue to face trial before a Delhi court. The assault, however, left wounds far beyond the physical ones—her marriage broke down and she was left to fend for herself, fighting for rehabilitation and medical treatment.

In her writ petition filed in 2014, the survivor sought modification of government policies to extend retrospective benefits to acid attack victims like herself. She also pleaded for free medical and surgical treatment and compensation to cover the staggering expenses incurred in her years-long struggle for recovery.

During the pendency of the case, she received interim compensation of Rs 3,74,712 and her medical bills were reimbursed, but her plea for final compensation remained unaddressed.

Justice Kuldeep Tiwari, before whom the matter was placed in January, concluded that Panipat District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) erred in dismissing her compensation application on September 7, 2020. The DLSA refused her claim on the ground that her trial was still pending, a reasoning that the high court held to be inconsistent with the Haryana Compensation Scheme for Women Victims/Survivors of Sexual Assault/Other Crimes, 2020.

Justice Tiwari referred to the scheme’s clause 6, which explicitly stated that compensation applications in acid attack cases were required to be adjudicated by the Criminal Injury Compensation Board, not the DLSA. Besides this, provision for delaying compensation until the trial’s conclusion was not there in the scheme.

“The dismissal order dated September 7, 2020, is not drawn in consonance with the mandate enclosed in the Scheme of 2020… The compensation application was in fact required to be adjudicated by the Criminal Injury Compensation Board and not by the District Legal Services Authority,” Justice Tiwari asserted.

Recognising the prolonged trauma and medical challenges faced by the survivor, the court granted her liberty to file fresh claims for her ongoing treatment. “Since the petitioner requires continuous follow-up treatment for her injuries, which left a scar not only on her skin but her soul as well, she is at liberty to file fresh claims before the authority concerned with proof of bills, which shall be considered by the latter in terms of the apposite scheme,” Justice Tiwari concluded.