- (1.) HEARD learned counsel for the parties.
(2.) THE petitioner appellant is aggrieved against the judgment and order dated 5th July, 2012, by which the petitioner's writ petition, W.P (C) No.3316/2009, has been dismissed. It will be appropriate to give the facts in brief. The petitioner claimed that he suffered damages and loss due to the riot occurred immediately after unfortunate assassination of the then Prime Minister, Smt.Indira Gandhi. He applied for grant of compensation, upon which the petitioner's case was considered and in Annexure - 1 annexed with this L.P.A, petitioner's compensation was assessed to be Rs.10,000/ and recommended for payment. Thereafter, on 16.1.2006, new Rehabilitation Pacakage was announced by the Central Government, whereby the compensation amount was enhanced. According to the petitioner, as per clause (iv) of the new Rehabilitation Package dated 16.1.2006, it is true that no new claim for grant of ex gratia for death or injury could have been entertained; however, in the same clause, it is clearly provided that those who received ex -gratia payment earlier will be eligible for enhanced additional ex gratia payment. Therefore, the petitioner for getting the enhanced ex -gratia payment approached this Court by filing writ petition, W.P (C) No.5981/2006, which was decided by the Division Bench of this Court along with several other petitions of inviduals as well as several Public Interest Litigations, vide judgment and order dated 15th May, 2008. The Division Bench in that bunch of petitions, in para 7 took note of the stand of the Central Government and observed that, the said pacakage is uniformly applicable to all the affected States including Jharkhand. The Division Bench held that, the State Government has to proceed with enquiry through the Committee for assessing the quantum of the damage or loss suffered by the victims and the petitioners were directed to approach the respective Deputy Commissioners and produce the materials to enable the Committee to come to the proper assessment of the damages. Therefore, according to learned counsel for the petitioner -appellant, the Division Bench of this Court in the petitioner's own petition, decided along with other writ petitions held, that the petitioner was eligible for enhanced compensation in view of the new Rehabilitation Package dated 16.1.2006. However, petitioner's representation submitted in pursuance of the decision of this Court delivered in the petitioner's own petition, W.P (C) No.5981/2006, has been rejected by the Deputy Commissioner on the ground that the petitioner's claim was already rejected and he had not been paid any compensation amount. The plea was accepted by the learned Single Judge and learned Single Judge dismissed the petitioner's writ petition challenging the order of the Deputy Commissioner.
(3.) ACCORDING to learned counsel for the appellant petitioner, the Deputy Commissioner and learned Single Judge committed an error of fact going to the root of the matter, which is apparent from the documents produced by the respondents themselves along with the supplementary counter -affidavit filed on 4.3.2013. Along with the said supplementary counter affidavit, the respondent State has annexed the order dated 14.8.1992, wherein it is clearly mentioned that the petitioner's case was recommended for payment of Rs.10,000/ and he was paid Rs.5,000/ . However, in this order dated 14.8.1992, it has been observed that it was a case of encroachment over Government land and therefore, the matter was dropped. According to the learned counsel for the petitioner, assuming for the sake of argument that the petitioner's claim case was dropped on the ground of being a case of encroachment over Government land, even then since the petitioner appellant was paid the compensation as ex -gratia compensation, which has been admitted in the order dated 14.8.1992, the petitioner certainly falls under the category of the persons "who received ex gratia amount of compensation earlier" and his case is covered under clause (iv) of the Rehabilitation Pacakge dated 16.1.2006.;