New Delhi, March 15 (IANS) The Supreme Court Monday ordered the DAV Trust, running hundreds of educational institutions in the country, to pay an interim sum of Rs.10 crore for relief and rehabilitation of victims, killed and injured over 14 years ago in a raging fire at a school it ran in a Haryana town.

A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice Deepak Verma and Justice B.S. Chauhan asked the DAV Trust to pay the interim damages first as a condition for hearing its lawsuit challenging a Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling for a compensation of Rs.46 crore.

The bench asked the DAV Trust to deposit the interim compensation amount with Sirsa's additional civil judge within six weeks for onward distribution of relatives of 446 people, including 230 children, killed at a school run by the DAV Trust in Dabwali in Haryana, in one of the country's worst fire tragedies.

The bench also issued notice to the Dabwali Fire Tragedy Victims' Association, seeking its response to the lawsuit filed of the DAV managing committee.

The DAV managing committee had come to the apex court challenging the Nov 9, 2009, decision of the Punjab and Haryana high court fixing a compensation of about Rs.46 crore to be shared between the committee and the Haryana government.

The high court had also directed the managing committee to foot 55 percent of the compensation amount. The state government had accepted the order to pay 45 percent of the compensation amount.

The committee challenged the order, contending that the amount and the share fixed by the high court was excessive.

The tragedy on December 23, 1995, had claimed 446 lives and left 200 others injured.