Handle terror attack victim’s case with sensitivity, Bombay HC tells Housing Department

Bombay High Court directs Maharashtra Housing Minister to consider 26/11 attack victim's plea for home under EWS scheme.

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday has directed the Housing Minister of the Maharashtra Government to consider a request by 26/11 Mumbai terror attack victim who has been asking for home under the economically weaker section (EWS) scheme. The division of bench led by Justice GS Kulkarni and Justice Firdosh Pooniwalla, asked the housing department to consider Devika Rotawan’s matter as an exceptional case, handle it with more sensitivity so that basic human rights are not violated in the case.  

The court said, “You are not getting hundreds of such claims of children. This is one such case which may require consideration. When a genuine case is presented before the department, the same would certainly require more human sensitivity and basic human rights. More particularly since she is a victim of a terrorist attack.”  

In the 2008 terror attack, Ms. Rotawan was shot by a bullet and since then she claims to have undergone surgeries. In her claims, she said that she continues to suffer with the aftereffects of the injury, is still under medication and periodical health treatment. Ms. Rotawan was a material witness in the terror attack trail that convicted terrorist Ajmal Kasab.  

In her petition to the court, Ms. Rotawan said that she is still required to attend court hearings in connected matters and that has been causing her financial constraints as she has only received a meagre compensation from the government that didn’t suffice to get a home for herself. This is the reason she had approached the housing department requesting to help her with a home under the EWS scheme.  

The justice bench said, “In our opinion, these are real cases where there would be a need for authorities to exercise discretion appropriately, which is otherwise routinely exercised and found to be in cases which we should not be in par with a case like the present case. We urge the housing minister to take an appropriate decision. We have perused the decision, and we find that the basic reasons which ought to have persuaded the department to make an exception in this case, which is not a normal case, are absent. There is no application of mind to the nature of the request.”   

The court also proceeded to adjourn the matter by two weeks and asked the housing department to take an appropriate decision and present it before the court.

 “We are quite astonished at the snail’s pace at which the decision is taken that too in a matter which raises issues of basic human rights and right to shelter of a victim of terrorist attack,” observed the court.