SrinagarThe Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Monday chided social welfare department for extending the timeline from 15 days to 22 days for processing and disbursement of benefits to poor girls under SMAS and HUNAR.
Under State Marriage Assistance Scheme (SMAS), an eligible poor girl beneficiary is entitled to get one-time financial assistance of Rs 25,000 and five grams of gold from district social welfare officers, while Hunar is a skill development programme for the girls living below poverty line.
Why have you changed the time line from 15 days to 22 days? You took law into you own hands. You should have come to court with an application, seeking extension of time line. Dont undermine the court. We are exercising a lot of self restraint. Otherwise court is not powerless, observed a division bench of Chief Justice Badar Durrez Ahmad and Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey while hearing a Public Interest Litigation.
The division bench underlined that the social welfare department was bound to process and grant the benefits to the poor girls in the state under SMAS and HUNNAR schemes with a period of 15 day as has been directed by the court.
The courts observation followed after amicus curie and Senior Advocate B A Bashir informed the court about the same.
On July 18 this year, the court also ordered the SWD should strictly comply with the time line prescribed in its order of 13 June 2016 by deciding the application within one week and, where the decision was in favour of the beneficiary, of disbursing the amount within one week thereafter.
By virtue of the order on 13 June last year, several provisions of the SMAS for poor girls were interpreted by the court and it was ordered that information sought at sr.no.8 of Form-I of the Scheme with regard to date of marriage and documentary evidence would not be necessary where such documentary evidence was not available.
The court had further ordered that where the date of marriage was not fixed but marriage was imminent, the beneficiary should file an affidavit stating that her marriage has been fixed but the date has not been set and that in the absence of any documentary evidence available with her, the affidavit would suffice.
Form-I and, in particular, serial no.8 was to be modified accordingly and the SWD was to indicate as to whether the form has been modified or not and, if not, it was ordered to done within a week on June 18.
The court underlined that the authorities have not understood the purpose and spirit of the schemes launched by the Government for the poor girls and directed all the District Social Welfare officers of Srinagar and Bandipora, on first instance, to get the records available before the court on next date.
On previous date of hearing, the court had directed the SWD to indicate the number of girls in each district who have been given the benefit of SMAS from its inception till date.
The SWD was also directed to also indicate the number of applications received in Form-I under the SMAS.
It shall thereafter indicate how many of those applications have been allowed and benefits given, how many have been rejected and how many are pending. The respondents shall also indicate the average time taken between receipt of the applications and decisions on those applications and also the average time already elapsed in so far as pending applications are concerned, the court had said, adding that in future, the authorities should strictly comply with the time line prescribed in the courts order dated 13 June 2016 of deciding the application within one week and, where the decision is in favour of the beneficiary, of disbursing the amount within one week thereafter.
The schemes were launched on the directions by the court in order to enable the poor girls live a dignified life and prevent their exploitation.
The PIL was initially a petition, seeking quashing of PSA order at the pre-execution stage against one Mohammad Amin Beigh, a resident of Kulgam in south Kashmir.
Beighwho was running a private security agency was ordered to be detained under the PSA by District Magistrate Srinagar on December 26, 2011 for indulging in immoral activities including physically exploiting poor girls as well as supplying them to others.
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