Informers take enormous risk; govt rewards should encourage them to come forward: Bombay HC

Informers take enormous risks and the governments approach should not discourage them from coming forward with information the Bombay High Court said recently directing the Centre to pay reward to the widow of a man who had tipped Customs officials about smuggled diamonds worth nearly Rs 90 lakh in 1991A division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Abhay Ahuja in its order of January 5 which was made available later noted that the objective behind offering a reward to informers is to aid the department in taking measures to safeguard the exchequerThe bench was hearing a petition filed by one Jayashree Dhavre widow of Chandrakant Dhavre seeking reward given to informers as per government policyIn 1991 the petition had claimed the Customs department seized smuggled diamonds based on information shared by Chandrakant The informer was paid an advance of Rs 3 lakh over the next few years but the final amount was never disbursed despite several remindersThe department told the court that it needed to first verify if Chandrakant was the real informer but the bench rejected the contention noting that it had earlier released two advance payments to himThe HC noted that though there is no legal right to demand a reward as per the policy the rejection must not be arbitraryThe approach should not be such that it discourages the informers from coming forward Ultimately the objective of offering a reward to the informer is to aid the department in taking measures to safeguard the public exchequer the court saidAlso Read HC seeks CBI reply on Rakesh Roshans plea seeking return of money recoveredThe informers take enormous risks in providing information Unfortunately in this case the respondents Union government have taken a rigid stand when the correct approach would have been to go by broad probabilities of the case the peculiar circumstances of the case and the hardship of the petitioner and should have handled this case with sensitivity the HC saidThe judges noted that the petitioners claim was meritorious and nonintervention by the court would amount to a failure of justiceThe bench directed the Union government to treat Jayashree Dhavres claim as eligible for the grant of final reward and determine the amount to be paid to her within 12 weeksAs per the petition filed in 2021 Chandrakant had in March 1991 provided specific inputs to the office of the Marine and Preventive wing of the Mumbai Commissionerate of Customs about smuggled diamondsLater Customs department searched the premises of some jewellers and recovered rough diamonds worth Rs 321 lakh and polished diamonds worth Rs 8447 lakhChandrakant was paid Rs 1 lakh in April 1993 and Rs 2 lakh in 1999 as advances for the rewardIn 2006 and 2007 Chandrakant sent several representations to the Customs department for the release of the final reward as per policy He died in August 2010 prompting his wife to send requests for the release of the final amountWhen she failed to receive any satisfactory reply from the department Jayashree approached the high courtThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever