Rs 8 lakh ex-gratia to kin of snakebite victims in Adilabad
School failed to act in time: Hyderabad High Court.
Hyderabad: Moved by the death of two girl students of the Kasturba Gandhi Balikala Gurukul Vidyalayam, Dahegaon, in Adilabad district due to snakebite, the Hyderabad High Court has directed the TS Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan project director to pay Rs 8 lakh each to the family of the girls.
Justice P. Naveen Rao was allowing a petition by Mulukutla Pochaiah and Kambala Mallesh, both residents of Adilabad, seeking to direct the authorities to pay Rs 10 lakh for death of Rajeshwari and Laxmi on August 23, 2006 due to snakebite in the school.
The petitioners told the court that the schools was established in a dilapidated house which lacked even basic amenities and the authorities failed to provide emergency treatment to snakebite victims.
The judge said, “It’s a clear case of negligence by the authorities which led to untimely death of two children in the most bizarre manner. Their actions shock the conscious of this Court. It is better to shut down such schools than making the children study under constant threat to their life.”
He directed the respondents to open FD accounts in the name of mothers of the deceased children and deposit '5 lakh in each of the accounts. The remaining '3 lakh should be place in fixed deposit in the names of the living sisters of the two victims. The judge gave the respondent 12 weeks from the date of receipt of copy of the order to comply.
The Hyderabad High Court has held that once a couple is separated and the separation has continued for a sufficient length of time and one of them seeks divorce, it can well be presumed that the marriage was broken down.
A division bench comprising Justice C.V. Nagarjuna Reddy and Justice G. Shyam Prasad, while allowing an appeal by a man challenging the order of lower court rejecting his divorce petition, observed: “The Court, no doubt, would seriously make an endeavour to reconcile the parties; yet, if it is found that the breakdown is irreparable, then divorce should not be withheld.”
Justice Reddy said, “A marriage signifies union of two bodies and souls. As long as the couple lives in a congenial atmosphere with amiable and amicable understanding, they enjoy the marital bliss. An occasional quarrel between the spouses is not uncommon. But quarrels of the nature as between a cat and mouse or a snake and mongoose make the life of both the spouses miserable.”