Justice delayed
The Baldia factory fire occurred on September 11, 2012 in which 264 workers of the factory were burnt alive or suffocated to death and 60 others were left incapacitated to varying degrees. It has recently been revealed during the hearing of a petition in the Sindh High Court that the affectees of the horrific fire incident in Karachi have only been paid partial compensation despite the passage of more than eight years.
The petition, filed by the affectees of Pakistan’s deadliest industrial inferno, contends that they are entitled to get compensation in accordance with the ILO convention. It says that the Sindh government has so far paid only Rs300,000 each to the survivors and families of the victims, even though a provincial minister had promised a proper monetary compensation. The petitioners claim that they were yet to be paid Rs650 million worth of compensation money, and that they should be compensated in lump sum as the German company, for which the local firm worked, has already issued millions of rupees to be paid as compensation.
The payment of a mere Rs300, 000 in these long years is hardly sufficient for families to carry on in these times of galloping inflation. The tiresome delay in payment of compensation even when the German firm has paid its share of the compensation amount is something mind-boggling. Victims’ claim to compensation is valid under the ILO convention, so delay in payment goes against the principle of natural justice. The court fixed the next hearing on Feb 21 when it summoned the EOBI secretary to explain the issue.
Here comes up the proverbial delay of the law. This is also one of the flaws of the country’s justice system that court cases drag on for years and sometimes even for generations. The law should not be made a scarecrow to keep away birds, because gradually they lose fear of the scarecrow and make it their perch and not their terror. It is for the quarters concerned to take corrective measures.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 24th, 2021.
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