Pb mulls making inquest mandatory in case of farmer suicides

The Punjab government is mulling making inquest proceedings mandatory in farmer suicide cases for the payment of ex-gratia in order to prevent any "fraudulent" claims, an official said.
Inquest proceeding, under section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, is aimed to ascertain whether a death is suicidal.
"There is a proposal to make inquest proceedings mandatory in case of farmer suicide. This proposal came in a cabinet sub-committee meeting," said a senior official of Punjab revenue department today.
The idea behind this proposal is to prevent any fraudulent claims for ex-gratia, the officer said.
The official however said that nothing has been finalised yet by the government in this regard.

"It is at a discussion stage," he clarified.

The Congress led government had last month announced raising the ex-gratia for suicide affected families to Rs 5 lakh from the earlier Rs 3 lakh.
At present, inquest proceedings are not mandatory in suicide cases, the official pointed out.
An ex-gratia is given to the families of farmers who commit suicide on the basis of the post-mortem report, FIR copy after a district level committee recommends such cases to the state government.