Now, legal heirs of even those farmers who ended their lives on being unable to repay loans taken from licensed private moneylenders are eligible to get compensation, the State government on Tuesday told the High Court of Karnataka.
A submission in this regard was made before a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Suraj Govindaraj during the hearing of a PIL petition filed in 2019 by Akhanda Karnataka Raitha Sangha of Shahapur taluk in Yadgir district. The government has issued a modified scheme for compensation for the kin of farmers after the High Court in April questioned the earlier scheme of paying compensation to the legal heirs of only those farmers who had taken loan from banks and credit societies.
However, the government’s modified scheme states that legal heirs of farmers who have committed suicide on being unable to pay the loan obtained from unlicensed private moneylenders are not eligible for compensation. The government pays a compensation of ₹5 lakh to the legal heirs of farmers who end their life owing to the burden of farm loan.
Following this, the Bench directed the government to consider afresh applications, made by the family members of 20 farmers from Shahpur taluk, which were rejected earlier as the farmers had taken loan from private moneylenders.
Meanwhile, the Bench allowed the petitioner to question the decision of the government not to extend the compensation to family of farmers who had taken loans from unlicensed private moneylenders. The court had earlier observed that “prima facie, it is very difficult to accept that the classification made by the State government will stand the test of Article 14 of the Constitution of India...”
