Dagestan court rules in favor of Irganai migrants

The Supreme Court of Dagestan agreed to pay compensation for government inaction to 19 residents affected by the construction of the Irganai hydroelectric power station, reducing the amount of compensation by 30 times. The government of Dagestan has prepared a budget request for compensation to the displaced persons.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, on September 2, 2023, it became known that residents of the villages flooded during the commissioning of the Irganai hydroelectric power station in 2008 received a response from the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia. It talks about the shortcomings in the submitted documents that need to be corrected, and also notes that there is no money in the budget for compensation payments in 2024-2025. Following this, more than 50 Dagestani deputies appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to pay attention to the problems of residents of villages flooded during the commissioning of the Irganai hydroelectric power station in 2008. Villagers have been seeking compensation for a long time.

Today, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Dagestan overturned the decision of the Soviet Court of Makhachkala to collect compensation for moral damages for government inaction in favor of residents of the republic affected by the flooding of the Irganai hydroelectric power station, lawyer Marina Agaltsova, representing the interests of the victims, told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

 "We have positive news from Dagestan today. In 2022, the government's inaction was recognized in not filing an application and sending documents to cover compensation for flooded gardens and lands. And last year we prepared a lawsuit. The Soviet Court of the city of Makhachkala refused to collect compensation for moral damages for inaction, previously recognized by the Presnensky District Court of Moscow. We appealed, and, it turns out, on the fourth attempt, our appeal was finally considered," she said. she.

The lawyer recalled the background of the story with the residents of the flooded lands.

"In 2008, in order to build the Irganai hydroelectric power station, which is part of a chain of hydroelectric power stations, the lands and houses of my clients were flooded and compensation has not yet been paid. The plaintiffs' lands, which are located in the Untsukulsky district of Dagestan, were flooded without prior and equivalent compensation, as well as without payment of lost profits," Agaltsova said.

According to her, in order for them to receive compensation from the federal budget, it is necessary for the Dagestan authorities to collect a budget application and accompanying documents.

"This is a very big and very serious issue. In order to settle accounts with the victims, local district administrations, executive authorities, and federal ministries needed to prepare and agree on a set of documents. However, until now, after 16 years have passed since the flooding, the documents have not been agreed upon, compensation has not been paid. During this time, some of the residents have died, and they have successors. The task has become even more complicated. In 2021, 561 victims appealed to the Presnensky District Court of Moscow to appeal the inaction of the government of Dagestan, the Ministry of Energy and Tariffs of Dagestan, and the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. On March 25, 2022, the Moscow City Court recognized the inaction of the government of the Republic of Dagestan since 2013, and rejected the rest of the claim. The plaintiffs recovered moral damages for the inaction recognized by the court, ”Agaltsova explained.

She also reported that the Soviet Court of Makhachkala refused to recover in full.

“We asked for each person, we have 19 plaintiffs, to recover 300,000 rubles for all the years of inaction, recognized by the court, that is, from 2013 to 2022 - eight years of inaction. The Soviet Court completely rejected our claim, citing the fact that we did not prove that people suffered. We appealed this. The Supreme Court of Dagestan overturned the decision of the Soviet Court and recognized everyone's right to compensation for moral damage in the amount of 10,000 rubles. This is generally not bad, because we needed a victory here. It is clear that we wanted more, but overall this is not bad, since in general it is very difficult to collect moral damage for such inaction," said Agaltsova.

The representative of the defendant, a lawyer for the Ministry of Justice of Dagestan found it difficult to say whether the government would challenge the decision to compensate for moral damage to those affected by the flooding of the Irganai hydroelectric power station.

"We don't know yet, we need to get the ruling in hand, then we will decide," - he told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

One of the plaintiffs, the former head of the village of Irganai Magomed Aligadzhiev, said that overall he and the other victims were happy with the court's decision.

"We are happy that our demands were satisfied. But they are partial. 10 thousand is a ridiculous price for our suffering. By the way, when I touched on the amount, I explained it to them like this. If this amount of 300 thousand is divided by the years that you, the government, did nothing, then you get 27 thousand per year. And even if 19 people in total demand 300 thousand rubles each, it comes to 5 million 700 thousand rubles. This is only the bonuses of two officials of the government of the Republic of Dagestan, whose inaction was recognized by the Moscow court. For the fact that a person did nothing, he is paid a bonus," he told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The plaintiff also reported, that at present the government of Dagestan has finally prepared a budget application for financial compensation to people who lost property during the construction of the Irganai hydroelectric power station.

"The government of Dagestan sent a budget application for almost 14.5 billion rubles to the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. This amount is underestimated by 5 billion rubles. And although we argued with them, proved, but they considered that we were wrong, sent this budget application. It is currently under consideration by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. The payments were divided into three parts. One is lost profit for the land. The second is housing. And the third is the coastal protection strip and land seizure for the construction site. Either they accept it, or they will have some comments on this budget application," Aligadzhiev said.

He recalled that the thousands of affected residents of Irganai have repeatedly sent applications and appeals to various authorities. "We sent more than 5.5 thousand letters to Putin, more than 1.5 thousand to the Minister of Economic Development and the Prime Minister. Our efforts, our appeals yielded results. And our issue is under the control of Prime Minister Mishustin. If the application is approved, payments will be made in three stages, in 2026, 2027 and 2028," Alijadzhiev noted.

* the activities of the Meta company (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) are prohibited in Russia.