CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court has awarded Rs 5 lakh compensation for the death of a student of State-run Bilabadi Sevashram in Kandhamal, 11 years ago. “The death of 7-year-old Jasmin was undoubtedly on account of the negligence of the authorities in charge of the Sevashram where she was an inmate and therefore the liability to compensate for her death has to be squarely fixed on the State under whose administrative control the Sevashram was functioning,” the division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice RK Pattanaik ruled in it’s June 28 order, a full text of which was available on Thursday.
While directing the State government to pay Rs 5 lakh compensation in addition to the Rs 50,000 ex-gratia already paid the bench said, “The said sum shall be paid to the Petitioner (Jasmin’s father) by the State within a period of eight weeks from today (June 28), failing which the State will be liable to further pay simple interest on the said sum at six per cent per annum for the period of delay.” According to case records, Jasmin was a boarder at the Girls’ Hostel of the said Sevashram, which is functioning under the ST&SC Development Department.
She suffered headache and mild fever on the night of April 21, 2011. The next morning around 8 am, the head sevak sent her back to her village accompanied by four other young girl students. On the way back, Jasmin became unconscious and the four girls with lot of difficulty carried her for a short distance before two villagers rushed for help. In their presence, Jasmin expressed her inability to carry on, collapsed and died.
In 2012, Jasmin’s father Bichhanda Mallick filed a petition seeking compensation for her daughter’s death. Advocate Prabir Kumar Das argued on behalf of Mallick alleging negligence of the head sevak of the Bilabadi Sevashram.
Taking note that the 140-seater hostel was left on the fateful day in the charge of just one head sevak, the bench observed, “The death was clearly an avoidable one. There was a culpable failure on the part of the authorities in charge of the Sevashram in failing to put in place adequate measures to take care of medical emergencies like the one in which Jasmin found herself and for which she got no assistance whatsoever.”