New Delhi: The Centre and the city government
were asked on Tuesday by the Delhi High Court to examine the plea
of a group of 1984 Anti-Sikh riot victims seeking grant of
rehabilitation package to them on basis of their residence
here.
Taking up their pleas seeking a grant Rs 2 lakh each to
seven people from different Sikh families residing here,
Justice Vipin Sanghi directed the Delhi government to verify
their residential status here and consider their pleas for
grant in co-ordination with the Centre.
The court asked the city government to ascertain the
genuineness of victim`s pleas within two months and also
directed the Centre to grant the money for disbursement within
a month thereafter.
The anti-Sikh riots had broken out in Delhi and elsewhere
in the country in the wake of assassination of the then Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984.
In their pleas, the victims claimed said they were
residing in various localities here in Delhi during the riot
in which their properties, including some shops, were burnt
and destroyed by the attackers.
Due to the disturbance here, they had migrated to Punjab
where they stayed for more than four years and the state
government issued them Red Card, granting refugee status to
them in 1986, the victims claimed in the petition.
In 1988, they had returned to Delhi to start their
business here and in 2006 the Centre had announced
rehabilitation package of Rs 2 lakh to each family affected in
the riots, they said in their petition.
According to the petitioners, when they applied for the
package in Punjab, the state government had denied them on the
ground that they had moved back to Delhi in 2007.
Claiming that they filed their applications for grant to
the Delhi government and forwarded their copies to the Home
Ministry, the victims said as no grant materialised to them,
they even send representations to the Prime Minister Office in
2009. They added they have finally approached the court.
PTI
