Red tape: Widow finally goes to court for compensation

File was pushed ahead from the governor, health and finance departments, to the CM.

KARACHI: After waiting for almost 22 months for the bureaucracy to come through, the widow of a man who died in a train accident, went to court over compensation that the government had promised.

The petition was filed by Lali, the widow of Nursing Thakur, a resident of Thakur Mohallah in Husri, Hyderabad. She was represented by her attorney Jumman Shoro. It was heard on Tuesday by Sindh High Court Chief Justice Musheer Alam and Justice Imam Bux Baloch.

According to Lali, on November 3, 2009, her husband and 16 other passengers died when the Allama Iqbal Express train had an accident near Juma Goth, Landhi.

The Sindh government announced compensation for the families of the victims and Lali, who has a number of children, applied. But she had a long wait ahead of her as the paperwork had to be processed. In a letter on May 10, 2010, the governor had asked for the compensation to be paid. On June 22, 2010, the health department put in the request. For six months, it lay with the finance department. On January 6, 2011, the request was sent to the finance minister, who sent it the next day to the office of the chief secretary from where it reached its destination ie the chief minister’s secretariat.

He is the final authority, the decision maker in such cases.

The file has been awaiting the CM’s decision since January 24, 2011. The judges ordered for notices to be issued to the people named in the petition: the chief minister, ministers of health and finance and the chief secretary.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st,  2011.