Mishap victims must be given their rightful due

If there has been a court order saying she must be given a job, then one fails to understand why she has not been given a job and this is contempt

A 45-year-old widow whose husband was mauled to death by a lion at Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) back in 2010, is struggling to make ends meet. Eight years after the incident, in 2018, she was given '1.5 lakh compensation, even though she was promised '10 lakh. The woman, assisted by a non-profit firm approached Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT) court earlier this year. The MAT court issued a directive asking the SGNP officials to offer Gimbhal a job as compensation. She has no permanent job yet.

When promises are made, they need to be kept. If she was promised '10 lakh then, there needs to be an investigation of why she has been given only '1.5 lakh. If there has been a court order saying she must be given a job, then one fails to understand why she has not been given a job and this is contempt.

Promises are often made by politicians or authorities in the immediate aftermath of an incident. We have no clue whether these are honoured. We hear so many times that victims of this or that accident have been promised compensation, or their family member has been promised a job, but several times, this has never fructified.

We also have examples of people who have won court orders in their favour, but have never seen the other side honour it. Broken promises and open contempt point to a brazen society uncaring of any kind of ethical responsibility or legal consequences of their actions. They bank on the victim simply running out of energy and resources to pursue the case.

This one where a widow is struggling to survive, and her daughter stopping studies to do work and help her mother is particularly shameful. Authorities need to respond and follow protocol.

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