Kumbakonam school fire tragedy: At last! Govt to compensate kin

Chennai: The state government on Tuesday informed the Madras high court that it has decided to pay the compensation as recommended by the Commission of Inquiry to the families of victims of Kumbakonam school fire tragedy in which 94 children died and several injured. The compensation will be paid with interest from the date of occurrence of the incident (July 16, 2004).

The Deputy Secretary of the School Education department, A.R.Rahul Nadh, stated this in an affidavit filed before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan. Recording it, the bench said the government has accepted the request of the petitioner to pay compensation with interest from the date of accident and interest rates prevailing for different financial years as on 2004-2011 at 8 per cent, 2011-2012 at 8.6 per cent and 2012-2016 at 8.7 pe rcent.

The AAG submitted that the beneficiaries may disclose their respective bank accounts to the government and the amount will be transferred directly to the accounts of the beneficiaries within four weeks, the bench added and closed the petition.

Originally, on a petition filed by K.Inbaraj, father of one of the children and secretary of Kumbakonam Fire Tragedy Victims Association, the high court had appointed Justice K Venkataraman Commission of Inquiry, a retired judge of the high court, to determine the compensation payable to the victims.

After conducting a detailed enquiry, the commission had on March 30, 2016 submitted its report recommending Rs 5 lakh to each of the parents of the deceased students, Rs 6 lakh to four students, who were severely injured and Rs 5 lakh to three students who were also severely injured and Rs 50,000 to each of the 10 students who filed claim petition before the commission with interest at the rate of 6 percent from the date of filing the claim petition.

Aggrieved, the petitioner filed another petition to enhance the compensation.
However, when the petition came up for hearing on July 13, the petitioner restricted his relief to the rate of interest at 9 percent and from the date of occurrence.

The court had directed the government to consider the same sympathetically and posted the matter to October 18. When the case came up for hearing on Tuesday, Rahul Nadh filed an affidavit stating that the government carefully considered the observation made by the court in its interim order and had decided to pay the compensation as recommended by the commission with interest at the rate as per prevailing the GPF interest rate from the date of occurrence of the incident to the victims and families.