New Delhi: The Supreme Court dismissed the plea filed by the Uttar Pradesh government, challenging the high court order to consider giving a job to a family member of the victim of the Hathras case as well as their relocation, IANS reported.
A bench of Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala dismissed the plea and told the State, Garima Prasad, additional advocate general (AAG) of Uttar Pradesh, "State should not come up in such matters... Prasad submitted that the state government is ready to relocate the family, but they wanted a job either in Noida or Delhi."
Garima had said that the elder married brother of the victim could be regarded as a 'dependent', which was a question of law to be considered.
Declining to entertain the state government's plea, the Chief Justice said, "these are facilities provided to the family. We should not interfere. The State should not come up in these matters..."
After the order was pronounced, the AAG urged the apex court to keep the question of law open, the bench said that the order had specified that it was passed in the special facts and circumstances of the case.
In July last year, the high court passed directions in a matter connected with the Hathras case, where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was alleged to have been raped and murdered in September 2020 in Hathras.
The high court said the state authorities must abide by the promise, which was made to the family in September 2020, to give employment to one member and also directed the authorities to consider relocation of the family outside Hathras but within Uttar Pradesh.
The high court's order came on a PIL registered suo motu as Right to Decent and Dignified Last Rites/Cremation in 2020 after the victim's last rites were performed in haste after midnight, allegedly in the absence of the consent of the family.