Forty-two years after the shops around the Golden Temple were badly damaged during Operation Bluestar, the high court has directed the Punjab government to allot booths/ sites to the affected families at the rate of ₹1,000 per square yard.
“We have issued the aforesaid directions in view of the rigour and hardship which the petitioners have faced for the last 42 years, which this court is of the firm view have infringed upon their fundamental rights, including the rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 21 and 19 of the Constitution,” the bench of justice JS Puri and justice PS Chauhan said while deciding a clutch of petitions, some of them pending since 2000.
The petitioners had demanded directions to Punjab to allot commercial sites/shops as announced by government for rehabilitating the sufferers/oustees of the operation. One of the primary grievances of the petitioners was that the government has been delaying the matter for a long time which is nearly four decades. It was in 2017, the Supreme Court had remanded back the case of rehabilitating these families.
The HC said it is “at pains” that after 42 years, the court is deciding the issue as to at what rate the affected families are to get alternate sites of their shops, notwithstanding the decision taken by the government in the early 1990s.
{{/usCountry}}The HC said it is “at pains” that after 42 years, the court is deciding the issue as to at what rate the affected families are to get alternate sites of their shops, notwithstanding the decision taken by the government in the early 1990s.
{{/usCountry}}The court noted that in 1988, the government came out with a scheme to beautify surroundings of Golden temple, called as Galiara scheme and alternate sites at the rate of ₹1,000/- per square yard were offered to oustees. But there was no scheme for the affected families of Operation Bluestar in June 1984.
In 1991, a decision was taken to rehabilitate these affected families in the same manner oustees of Galiara scheme were compensated, it further noted, adding that records produced showed 128 affected persons were identified out of which 5 persons are such who have not yet be rehabilitated.
The court noted that when the matter pertains to displacement in such peculiar circumstances by a welfare state, the doctrine rests upon the larger constitutional principle that state action must be fair, non-arbitrary and consistent and that governmental assurances are not empty declarations. It said that there was no justification for state to have arbitrarily fixed rates at the rate of 38,400 per square yard in the year 2012 in some cases, when in 1991 it was decided that 1984 victims would be treated at par with the oustees Galiara project, who were allowed at the rate 1,000 per square yard.
“This court is of the considered view that the state government had been totally unfair, discriminatory and unsympathetic towards the petitioners and the similarly situated oustees, who were displaced by compulsion and force due to Operation Blue Star. There was no justifiable reason for the state government to depart from the rates that had been fixed under the Galiara Scheme and made applicable to the oustees of 1984 Operation Blue Star,” the court asserted and directed that 18 persons, who accepted the allotment at ₹38,400 would be disturbed the extra amount.
The five persons who have not even been considered under the scheme because of non-availability of space at the dedicated site shall would be offered alternate sites at ₹1,000 per square yard, along with other benefits of Galiara scheme, it added giving a deadline of two months.