The Kerala High Court recently expressed its appreciation to a financier, M/S Sundaram Finance, for sending the entire amount collected in insurance against a financed vehicle that was destroyed in a gruesome incident to the unfortunate victims, one of whom was also a rape survivor.
The Division Bench of Justices A. Muhamed Mustaque and Shoba Annamma Eapen praised the financier for going above and beyond their financial and commercial interests and demonstrating how humanity triumphed over all.
“In a commercialised world, where business interests are often projected, there are silver lines of hope like the one now exhibited,” the Court remarked.
According to the factual matrix, a young POCSO victim who had been living in the Women and Children home attained majority and filed a plea for living with her mother under Section 40 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. The survivor’s mother had divorced her husband/father, who was also the perpetrator of the crime.
The High Court had ordered the Victim Rights Centre (VRC), a service platform run by the Kerala Legal Services Authority (KeLSA), to be involved. One of the VRC members had also been assigned as a mentor to the survivor, who was studying Physics. When the survivor notified her member that she wanted to spend her college vacations with her mother and two siblings, they contacted the High Court Bench, which allowed her to go to her maternal house, which was far distant from where her father lived. The police were also told not to let the perpetrator’s father into the area while the survivor was staying with her mother.
However, in a heinous occurrence committed by the survivor’s father, the latter lost her mother and one sibling after her father set fire to the van carrying the survivor’s mother and two younger siblings. He was burned throughout the operation and died on the spot. One of the survivor’s siblings survived despite suffering severe burns.
The Court has posted the case at frequent intervals to provide information on the survivor and her sister’s well-being. Because the survivor had to change universities in order to attend a college near her maternal home, and there was a pause in her studies, the Court had suo motu impleaded the universities involved and, with the assistance of the NGO, identified
The Court had also suo motu impleaded the State Wakf Board, and the Board had sanctioned Rs 1,000,000/- as urgent relief to the survivor daughter.
At this point, a huge issue arose over the outstanding debt on the vehicle that was damaged in the tragedy in which the survivor had lost one of her brothers as well as her parents. The automobile was registered in the survivor’s mother’s name, and the father was the guarantor, and the accident occurred after the initial payment of two EMI installments on the vehicle. M/s. Kotak Insurance guaranteed the loan amount.
After several rounds of negotiations with the Kotak Insurance group, VRC and the financier were able to convince the insurance firm to deposit Rs 3 lakhs to the financier’s corporate account after depreciation and other deductions.
Following that, the financier deposited the entire money obtained from Kotak Life Insurance to the victim’s and her minor sibling’s joint account.
In this regard, the Court expressed its gratitude to the funder.
