New Delhi: Preventing a situation where victim compensation has to be provided is important because often such compensation remains a small solace, Supreme Court judge Rajesh Bindal said on Wednesday.
Justice Bindal said this while speaking at a book-release event organised in the Delhi High Court.
The books, titled “Evaluation of Compensation Measures for Riot Victims in India” and “Protection of Women’s Rights against Domestic Violence in India”, have been written by advocates Anil Kathuria and Renu Grover respectively.
Kathuria is a former loss assessor and Grover a former law officer of the northeast Delhi riots claim commission.
Talking about victim compensation, the apex court judge, in a speech given in Hindi, said, “Kisi ki means of earning chali gayi hai. Usko aap kahan se assess karoge? Thik hai, courts ne bahut sare formulas devise kiye hai, time to time woh improve bhi ho rahe hai, aap dekh rahe hai (A person has lost his means of earning. How will you compensate him? Courts have indeed devised certain formulae for providing compensation and these are improving over time).”
“When you go in the background of compensation, the key is to prevent a situation where compensation has to be provided because you cannot really compensate anyone and it is often a small solace,” he added.
Justice Bindal said the biggest change in the compensation scheme was when the housewives’ income started to be assessed after comparing their roles with the male income earners and where it was found that while a male spouse earned an income after working for around eight hours, a homemaker worked for 16 hours.
“Such value assessment, such comparison resulted in the growth of law,” he said.
Justice Bindal said incidents of people posing as false victims and claiming compensation should be checked.
“A big challenge is to compensate the innocent person, who is a sufferer, in rioting incidents,” he said.
Regarding domestic violence, the apex court judge said while according to data, the number of incidents has increased, the real crimes are still unreported.
Another aspect of these cases is the increase in their number due to false allegations, Justice Bindal said.
“I remember a case, which was settled through the Supreme Court’s mediation centre, where both parties (husband and wife) had filed 41 cases. What could be these 41 cases, it is everybody’s guess. In another pending matrimonial dispute, the husband and wife filed over 100 cases,” he said.
Such cases are clogging the legal system and tearing apart the social fabric, the apex court judge said.
“Here advocates have to play a positive role in checking such things, the reason being they can provide proper guidance and use mediation as a tool,” he said.
Justice Bindal said children are the biggest sufferers in matrimonial disputes.
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