THE PUNJAB and Haryana High Court on Friday issued a show cause notice to the principal secretary of the Punjab home department to initiate contempt proceedings against him for not complying with the court orders on the payment of Rs 2 lakhs as interim compensation to an acid attack victim in Sangrur.

The victim, Malkiat Singh, had moved the High Court earlier, challenging the order passed by the Victim Compensation Committee, Sangrur, in 2015 which had declined compensation for acid injuries on the ground that the matter had been compromised with the accused.

The High Court had asked the Punjab government in March to pay interim compensation to Malkiat within a month.

During the resumed hearing of the case, Justice Rajan Gupta on Friday directed the Sangrur SSP to explain why an FIR had not been registered in the acid attack case. Police had not registered an FIR in the case because of the compromise between the accused and the victim.

Malkiat, a truck driver, was injured when a bucket of acid was poured on him from a rooftop when he had gone to collect his pending salary from the accused Baldev Singh. However, when Malkiat was hospitalised, he had accepted an amount of Rs 1.5 lakh from Baldev Singh as financial assistance and signed an agreement deed to the effect that he had named Baldev Singh in his complaint due to mistake and that he does not want a First Information Report to be registered against Baldev Singh. Consequently, the SHO concerned did not register an FIR for the acid attack.