Court asks govt to pay ex-gratia to victims of 1997 blast case

The court also announced a separate compensation to all the injured and kin of those killed. The amount of separate compensation is to be ascertained by District Legal Service Authority and disbursed within eight weeks.

After the incident, the government had promised an ex-gratia of Rs 50,000 for the injured and had also announced compensation for the dead.

"In this unfortunate incident four passengers lost their lives whereas 24 others sustained injuries. Some of them lost their limbs."

"From the testimony of victims examined by prosecution, it appears that the state government had announced some ex-gratia payment to the injured and the kith and kin of the deceased. But the vexing factor is that some of them had not received the payment till date," Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Jain said.

"Once the government announced some ex-gratia payment to the victims, it became the duty of the government to make payment at the earliest.

"Let a copy of the judgement along with the list of the deceased and injured be sent to the chief secretary of the government of NCT Delhi with direction to make the payment (if not paid earlier) to all victims of the incident within four weeks and also fix responsibility of the erring officials /officers if the payment was not made to any of the victims earlier.

The court gave the directions in its judgement that acquitted Pakistani national Mohd Hussain alias Julfikar Ali after a re-trial.