Man mistakenly arrested in Karnataka compensated with Rs 5 lakh
Bengaluru, Aug 1: A 56-year-old man has been compensated with Rs 5 lakh for having been wrongfully arrested in a criminal case, due to a confusion over his name.
Ningaraju N, a resident of Kalidasa Layout here, had approached the High Court claiming that in the criminal case filed in 2011, the alleged accused Raju NGN was not him.
Quashing the case against him, the HC said, It is rather shocking that a person has been arrested without ascertaining whether he was the person who was required to be arrested and that the warrant had been issued against him.
Justice Suraj Govindaraj in his judgment dated July 7 noted that, his identification was not cross-checked and verified, resulting (in) an innocent person being arrested.
The HC said that the Right of Life and Liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution is paramount and there is a violation of the fundamental right in this case.
The court said the state was liable to compensate the arrestee for having put him through loss of liberty as also loss of reputation. The compensation was fixed at Rs 5 lakh which the court said was payable within eight weeks.
Ningaraju was arrested because the name of his father (Ningegowda) was similar to the name of the person named in the warrant.
I'm unable to comprehend as to how the name of the father being similar or even identical would have any role to play in the arrest, extrapolating the same logic if the arrest warrant has been issued for one brother, another brother or maybe even the sister could be arrested, merely, because the father name is identical.
Ningaraju was arrested on the wrong assumption that he was the ex-director of the Ms India Holiday (Pvt) Ltd, which was under liquidation.
Further, to prevent such incidents in the future the High Court directed that if Guidelines or Standard Operating Procedure are already issued to cater to this situation, training in this regard to be provided to all arresting officers.
If such a SOP is not already in place, the Director General of Police was directed to issue the guidelines as to what steps to be taken by the arresting officer before arresting a person including the verification of identity. This was directed to be issued within four weeks.
The HC will hear the matter again on September 1 to assess the compliance of the directions.
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Los Angeles county wildfires could be costliest in US history, early estimates say
Los Angeles, Jan 11: The wildfires that erupted this week across Los Angeles County are still raging, but already are projected to be among the costliest natural disasters in US history.
The devastating blazes have killed at least 11 people and incinerated more than 12,000 structures since Tuesday, laying waste to entire neighbourhoods once home to multimillion-dollar properties.
While it's still too early for an accurate tally of the financial toll, the losses so far likely make the wildfires the costliest ever in the US, according to various estimates.
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between USD 135 billion and USD 150 billion. By comparison, AccuWeather estimated the damage and economic losses caused by Hurricane Helene, which tore across six southeastern states last fall, at USD 225 billion to USD 250 billion.
“This will be the costliest wildfire in California modern history and also very likely the costliest wildfire in US modern history, because of the fires occurring in the densely populated areas around Los Angeles with some of the highest-valued real estate in the country,” said Jonathan Porter, the private firm's chief meteorologist.
AccuWeather factors in a multitude of variables in its estimates, including damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure and vehicles, as well as immediate and long-term health care costs, lost wages and supply chain interruptions.
The insurance broker Aon PLC also said Friday that the LA County wildfires will likely end up being the costliest in US history, although it did not issue an estimate. Aon ranks a wildfire known as the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, in 2018 as the costliest in US history up to now at USD 12.5 billion, adjusted for inflation. The Camp Fire killed 85 people and destroyed about 11,000 homes.
The LA County wildfires, which were fuelled by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds and an extreme drought, remained largely uncontained Saturday. That means the final tally of losses from the blazes is likely to increase, perhaps substantially.
“To put this into perspective, the total damage and economic loss from this wildfire disaster could reach nearly 4 per cent of the annual GDP of the state of California,” AccuWeather's Porter said.
In a report Friday, Moody's also concluded that the wildfires would prove to be the costliest in US history, specifically because they have ripped through densely populated areas with higher-end properties.
While the state is no stranger to major wildfires, they have generally been concentrated in inland areas that are not densely populated. That's led to less destruction per acre, and in damage to less expensive homes, Moody's noted.
That's far from the case this time, with one of the largest conflagrations destroying thousands of properties across the Pacific Palisades and Malibu, home to many Hollywood stars and executives with multimillion-dollar properties. Already, numerous celebrities have lost homes to the fires.
“The scale and intensity of the blazes, combined with their geographic footprint, suggest a staggering price tag, both in terms of the human cost and the economic toll,” Moody's analysts wrote. The report did not include a preliminary cost estimate of the wildfire damage.
It could be several months before a concrete tally of the financial losses from the wildfires will be possible.
“We're in the very early stages of this disaster,” Porter said.
