Constitutional courts in India routinely award compensation for violations of fundamental rights. Such claims for monetary relief, often referred to as constitutional tort claims, evolved as an exception to the doctrine of sovereign immunity and were firmly established as a judicial remedy in Rudal Sah v. State of Bihar ("Rudal Sah"). This paper examines how constitutional courts have applied, and at times departed from, the principles laid down in Rudal Sah. It undertakes an empirical study of High Court decisions from the past five years (2019 to 2024) to map the categories of cases that reach the courts' dockets, the quantum of monetary relief awarded, and the judicial reasoning invoked to justify such relief. The analysis reveals marked inconsistency, as courts shift between rationales of deterrence, palliative relief, exemplary damages, and the metaphorical need to "apply balm to the wounds" of petitioners. In practice, the decisive factor often appears to be little more than the subjective "temper of the court," highlighting the absence of a coherent or principled framework for awarding compensation. To address these inconsistencies, the paper proposes adopting the multiplier method and the Vento guidelines as tools to bring greater clarity, consistency, and predictability to constitutional compensation. In doing so, it attempts to provide a "method to the madness" that characterizes the current state of constitutional tort jurisprudence.

Keywords: constitutional tort - compensation - fundamental rights violations -judicial remedies -Rudal Sah