POCSO Act | Delhi High Court Asks Special Courts To Grant Interim Compensation To Child Victims Without Waiting For Them To Move An Application

The Delhi High Court has observed that Special Courts must, on their own, initiate action for grant of interim compensation to child victims at the earliest, without waiting for them to file an application for the same.

Justice Jasmeet Singh was dealing with a bunch of pleas wherein a predecessor bench had sought to streamline the process of supplying FIRs pertaining to commission of sexual offences to DSLSA, for the purposes of granting interim compensation to the victims.

The development came after the Court was apprised that when the applications are moved before the Special Court for interim compensation, it takes two to three hearings before any effective order is passed in the same.

"According to me, the Special Court need not wait for an application to be filed by a child victim before passing an order for interim compensation and must on its own initiate action for grant of interim compensation at the earliest," the Court ordered.

The Court also directed that the Special Courts shall inform the victims about their right to move application under Delhi Victims Compensation Scheme when the case comes up for hearing before them. It referred to Rule 9(1) of POCSO which provides that Special Court may, in appropriate cases, on its own or on an application filed by or on behalf of the child, pass an order for interim compensation to meet the needs of the child for relief or rehabilitation at any stage after registration of FIR. Such interim compensation is adjustable against the final compensation, if any.

The Court added that the Special Court must rely on the preliminary assessment report which is to be filed within 24 hours of the registration of the FIR.

"Since there are only 5,503 pending cases, as a corollary, 81,902 must have been disposed of. There is no data with regard to the fact whether any compensation has been paid in those 81,902 cases," the Court noted.

The Court said that the status reports filed in the matter be forwarded to District Judges and sought a further status report within four weeks, with a request to the Judges to give their views within a period of two weeks.

Case Title: Umesh v. State (and other connected matters)

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Del) 621

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