NHRC comes to the rescue of IOC employee's son
New Delhi   17-Nov-2010

The National Human Rights Commission has come to the rescue of a minor son of an IndianOil employee at Haldia in West Bengal who has been missing from the company's hospital since 2004.

The human rights body has ordered the IOC Chairman to provide a compensation of Rs.50,000 to the boy and asked it to send the compliance report with proof of payment within six weeks. The amount has to be remitted in a bank's fixed deposit in the name of the six-year-old, Sriman Shibasis Mandal, who can withdraw it after attaining the age of 18 years.

The boy's grandfather – Chitta Ranjan Mandal – could withdraw the monthly interest accrued in the FD for the welfare of Sriman. Presently Chitta Ranjan is living at Tarana village in Orissa's Mayurbhanj district with the boy.

Sanjib Kumar Mandal (30), the boy's father, went missing from the IOC hospital on December 18, 2004, where he was admitted for the treatment of fever. His father filed a complaint in the NHRC and found that prima facie it happened due to negligence by the hospital. But IOC denied this and informed that an ad hoc amount of Rs.4,000 per month -- 40 per cent of Sanjib's last drawn salary—had been sanctioned for his wife Surbhi Mandal from March 2007. Besides, Rs.16,000 was sanctioned as transportation cost of household goods from Haldia Refinery Township to Sanjib's native place. But the goods were reverted undelivered with remarks that the addressee had died.

Later IOC in an inquiry found that Surbhi had an unnatural death on January 2, 2009, and the local police had registered a case under the Dowry Prohibition Act against Sanjib's parents on a complaint by Surbhi's brother. The NHRC then desisted from recommending payment of any compensation to Sanjib's parents.However, with the help of the local police, the NHRC traced six-year-old Sriman and ordered compensation to him on November 1 this year.