40 Sikhs to get compensation after 33 years

It took more than three decades for a group of 40 Sikhs to get compensation after they were detained for a few days by the Army and Punjab police during the Operation Blue Star.
Advocate Bhagwant Singh Sialka, who fought the case for 40 Sikhs, today said that all the petitioners were arrested from the Golden Temple on June 6, 1984, and were kept in illegal custody by the Army and police until June 14 in a temporary jail made at Kendriya Vidyalaya in the army cantonment area of Amritsar and later in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, even after discharge order by a local court there.

He said finally the petitioners won the case after a legal battle for 33 years.
Sialka said that initially there were 270 petitioners who had filed the case, many died and some gave up and in the end only 40 left to continue their legal battle against the system.
He said that many of them were SGPC employees and devotees who had come to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple when operation Blue star was launched by the Indian Army.
He said, "on April 12 last month, a court ordered the state and central governments to pay Rs 4 lakh compensation to each of the 40 men".

He claimed that in June 1984, these 40 Sikh petitioners were detained by the Army and Punjab Police illegally.

He said that District Session Judge Gurbir Singh on April 12 in his judgement called it a "case of malicious prosecution, illegal detention and maltreatment on the part of authorities/defendants."
He said the court order states, "No evidence is there on record that plaintiff had fired towards Army personnel during the Operation Blue Star".
Besides the compensation of Rs 4 lakh each, the order says, "the plaintiff is held entitled to interest at the rate of six per cent per annum from the date of filing the suit", informed Sialka.