Acid attack victims: Centre, states to streamline payment of compensation

The central and the state governments on Saturday agreed to streamline the process for speedy and timely disbursal of compensation, including first-aid as well as medical treatment of the acid attack victims.

The "consensus" for speedy and timely disbursal of the compensation including first-aid and the medical treatment of acid attack victims was arrived at the meeting of the chief secretaries and health secretaries of the states and union territories.

The meeting was jointly convened by union Home Secretary L.C. Goyal and Health Secretary B.P. Sharma as directed by the Supreme Court's Social Justice bench on February 6.

"There was a consensus in the meeting to handle such cases with full sensitivity and streamline the current process for speedy and timely disbursal of compensation money including first-aid as well as medical treatment of the acid attack victims/patients", the official statement said.

Meeting reviewed the current status of the efforts made by the states/UTs relating to notification of victim compensation scheme and treatment of such victims, in pursuance to the directions of the apex court.

Goyal stressed on the speedy disbursal of compensation amount as well as timely treatment of acid attack victims in accordance with the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Section 357C of the Code of Criminal Procedure says: "All hospitals, public or private, whether run by the central government, the state government, local bodies or any other person, shall immediately, provide the first-aid or medical treatment, free of cost, to the victims of any offence covered under section 326A, 376, 376A, 376B, 376C, 376D or section 376E of the Indian Penal Code, and shall immediately inform police of such incident."

The health secretary advised the states to make use of the Clinical Establishments Act to provide first aid or medical treatment with special focus on acid attack victims.

Besides this, he offered support for capacity building of state government doctors in plastic surgery at specialised institutions identified by the health ministry.

Noting that some of the states have framed model rules for compensation but the rate of compensation was not uniform in all the state, the apex court by its February 6 direction asked the union home secretary and the health secretary to "jointly convene a meeting of the Chief Secretaries/their counterparts in the states and union territories within a period of six weeks to work out the details with regard to treatment of acid attack victims..."

The court further directed that the meeting would also discuss and prepare some model rules for compensation to be paid to the acid attack victims as directed by the apex court by its July 18, 2013 order.