The Karnataka Excessive Courtroom on Monday directed officers of the Division of Youth Empowerment and Sports activities to pay an international-level disabled swimmer greater than Rs 1.26 lakh as a pending money award, and imposed a superb of Rs 2 lakh on them.
Within the order, Justice M Nagaprasanna additionally directed the division’s officers to bear the sum of Rs 2 lakh in litigation bills personally.
The petitioner, Vishwas Okay S, is a swimmer with a number of medals on the worldwide stage who had misplaced his arms at a younger age in an accident.
Based mostly on a 2013 Karnataka Authorities notification granting money awards to worldwide para-swimmer medalists, he had approached the Division of Youth Empowerment and Sports activities in March 2018 for a money award of Rs 6 lakh. After failing to obtain the complete quantity regardless of a number of representations, he approached the Excessive Courtroom.
His counsel argued Vishwas had been subjected to inhumane remedy as he was not given his dues as a disabled individual, and was entitled to equal remedy. The opposing counsel stated he was paid Rs 4.6 lakh, which was the precise quantity due, and identified that the affiliation he represented had been disqualified from April 2015 to June 2016.
The bench noticed that though a distinct notification governing such awards was issued in 2017, the swimmer’s occasions happened throughout the pendency of the 2013 authorities notification. Below this, he could be eligible for Rs 4 lakh for 2 worldwide silver medals, and one other Rs 2 lakh for worldwide bronze medals in varied occasions.
“The affiliation’s suspension or its subsequent revocation can not deprive a deserving athlete of his rightful reward… It’s the stated sportsperson’s effort throughout the sporting occasion that they’d win a medal for the nation or the state, because the case could be, which might entitle them to get such money rewards….focus should not be on bureaucratic technicalities, however on the residing human spirit that triumphed towards colossal odds,” the bench stated.
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“…for having pushed a disabled individual to bear the brunt of litigation, the officers of the State have to be mulcted with cost of exemplary prices. The prices are to be imposed as a warning or to function a reminder to the officers of the State that justice delayed, particularly to those that overcome the gravest of odds just like the petitioner, just isn’t solely justice denied, however dignity diminished,” the bench added.