The Supreme Court will hear a request for unified compensation for hate crime victims on April 23

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on April 23, demanding a plea for unification to compensate victims of hate crimes and mob lynchings. |Photo source: Shashi Shekhar Kashyap

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on April 23, demanding a plea for unification to compensate victims of hate crimes and mob lynchings.

The Supreme Court sought a response from the Center, State and Union Territory (UTS) in April 2023 (Impar).

It has asked the Centre, State and UTS to know the court about the measures taken to develop a plan for relief, as directed by the top court in the 2018 judgment in the Tehseen Poonawala case.

Justices Br Gavai and Augustine George Masih plan to hear the matter, according to a list of reasons uploaded to the top court website on April 23.

At a hearing in the Supreme Court in April 2023, the petitioner’s lawyers said some states had built plans based on the 2018 judgment, but there was no unity, and many states still had no such plans.

The petitioner said that the petitioner was praying for orders or instructions to uniformly grant lynching to victims of hate crimes and mobs, as the current practice of ratifying Triaï by various States is discriminatory and violates articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution.

It said the petitioners also prayed to direct states and UTS to provide just, impartial, reasonable compensation to victims of hate crimes and victims of mob lynchings and to follow their plans in line with Apex Court’s 2018 instructions.

The petition marks what states call “whimsical, discriminatory and arbitrary methods” adopted by the states in awarding former Gratia to victims of hate crimes and mob lynchings, as well as “trivial” compensation provided to them.

The request said that in most cases, the compensation granted by states depends on irrelevant factors such as “media coverage, political claims and the victim’s religious identity.”

“It can be seen that the trend of granting compensation to victims of hate crimes/mob lynching is determined based on the victim’s religious beliefs. In some cases, the victim belongs to other religious sects and has huge compensation, while in other cases, the victim belongs to a minority, the compensation is compensation, and the compensation is insufficient.