Kerala High Court Orders ₹9.73 Crore Release for 225 Pending Victim Compensation Claims

The Kerala High Court has directed the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to release ₹9.73 crore to settle 225 pending victim compensation claims within five weeks, according to the court's order.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice V.M. Syam Kumar issued the direction while reviewing the implementation of the Victim Compensation Scheme in the State. The Bench asked the Member Secretary of the Kerala State Legal Services Authority (KeLSA) to review the status of disbursements with the respective District Legal Services Authorities on a weekly basis, so that progress can be tracked until the money reaches the claimants.

The court also directed the secretaries of the District Legal Services Authorities to collect all required documents from victims while their cases are still pending before the court. The direction is aimed at ensuring that paperwork is completed early, so that claims are not held up at the stage of processing and disbursement.

Victim compensation schemes are intended to provide financial relief to people who have suffered loss or injury as a result of a crime, particularly where they have no other practical means of recovering it. State legal services authorities play a role in processing such claims, and district-level bodies handle much of the groundwork, including verification of documents. In this case, the High Court's intervention followed an examination of how the scheme is working on the ground.

In a connected matter, the court took note of the revised honorarium rates for mediators at the Kerala State Mediation and Conciliation Centre. It directed the State government to release the honorarium payable to mediators at the revised rates. Mediators are the neutral facilitators who help disputing parties reach a settlement outside a full trial, and mediation centres function as part of the wider Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) system, which is designed to reduce the burden on regular courts.

Both directions arose from a suo motu petition, a case initiated by the court on its own, concerning inadequate infrastructure at mediation and ADR centres across Kerala. As part of that case, the court reviewed a status report filed by KeLSA on the Victim Compensation Scheme. The two matters were taken up together because both concerned delays by the State government in releasing payments.

The order assigns the follow-up work to the legal services authorities at the State and district levels rather than leaving it to the claimants. The weekly review by the KeLSA Member Secretary is meant to keep the process moving, while the district secretaries have been asked to gather documentation at an early stage.

The five-week deadline now places the focus on the Home Department, which must arrange the release of ₹9.73 crore if the 225 claimants are to receive the compensation ordered in their favour. What happens next will depend on how quickly the department acts and how the weekly reviews record progress.