Kishtwar, Oct 18: On the directions of Justice Atul Sreedharan, Judge, High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh and Executive Chairman, J&K Legal Services Authority, Amit Kumar Gupta, Member Secretary, J&K Legal Services Authority on Friday held a virtual meeting with the Secretary, District Legal Services Authority, Kishtwar in connection with the recent fire incident at Village Mulwarwan, Tehsil Warwan, Kishtwar.
The meeting was attended by Slahuddin Ahmed, Secretary DLSA Kishtwar, LADCs, panel lawyers and PLVs.
“The prime objective behind this significant and timely initiative is to ensure that the District Legal Services Authority performs its obligation in rehabilitation of victims of fire-incident by ensuring protection of their legal rights”, maintained Amit Kumar Gupta. He said that victims of such incidents often face various legal issues because of loss of documents such as identity cards, health cards, property title deeds and other documents which lead to property disputes, non-release of timely compensation etc. “Our endeavour should be to assist the victims in retrieval or re-issuance of such documents by liaising with government departments and agencies”, he added.
Gupta asked Manjeet Singh Manhas, Chairman DLSA (Principal District & Sessions Judge) Kishtwar, for constitution of a special team which shall visit the place of incident and assist the victims and their families supporting the rehabilitation process. He also asked for organizing awareness programmes to inform the victims about their legal entitlements under various laws, compensation schemes and other statutory provisions that can aid in their rehabilitation. A legal aid helpdesk has also been decided to be set up at the place of incident.
Amit Kumar emphasized that the intervention of Legal Services Authorities should be for coordinating the integrated, strategic and sustainable development measures taken by the Government for rehabilitation purposes. The thrust of the efforts shall be for strengthening the capacity of victims of the fire incident and to coordinate with the Government departments and non-governmental organizations for providing quick aid to the victims, he added.
Secretary DLSA briefed the Member Secretary about the steps already taken by the DLSA to provide legal aid services to the victims of the devastating fire. He assured that the initiative taken by the J&K Legal Services Authority shall be properly implemented in order to safeguard the rights of fire-affected families besides ensuring that the process of rehabilitation is equitable, just and inclusive.
