The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) has halved the compensation payable to the family of a 30-year-old private firm employee who died in a road crash while driving on the wrong side on the road in 2023.
The court was hearing two appeals – one from the family of the deceased driver seeking increase in the compensation awarded by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), and the second by the insurance firm arguing that it was a case of contributory negligence and thus full compensation liability should not be placed on the driver of offending vehicle.
The accident had taken place in Pinjore on March 8, 2023, when the victim, Ashok Kumar, was going on his scooter with pillion rider Rinku. The scooter was on the wrong side of the road when it collided with an Ertiga car. Kumar died before reaching the hospital. A year later, MACT, Panchkula, awarded ₹18 lakh compensation to the family of the deceased.
‘Negligence on both sides’
{{/usCountry}}‘Negligence on both sides’
{{/usCountry}}When the matter later reached HC, the court took into account the version of the pillion rider, whom it termed the natural eyewitness to the occurrence. The FIR too had been lodged on the basis of his statement. According to the pillion rider’s version, the scooter was being driven on the wrong side when the accident occurred.
The insurance firm too produced closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage that showed the scooter on the wrong side though its registration number was not clearly visible.
The bench of justice Deepak Gupta, while stating that the footage cannot be viewed in complete isolation from the other circumstances, held: “...It constitutes corroborative material which, when read along with the FIR version furnished by the pillion rider, makes the plea of wrong side-driving by the deceased reasonably probable.”
Thus, the evidence on record presents a case where negligence is attributable to both sides, the court stated.
The deceased was driving the scooter on the wrong side, while the driver of the car also failed to exercise due care and caution so as to avoid the collision, it held assessing the negligence contributing to the accident 50% on part of the deceased and 50% on part of the driver of the offending vehicle.
The HC modified the finding of the tribunal whereby the sole reason of the accident was attributed to the offending vehicle.
CTC, not take-home pay for calculating compensation
The court also found that the tribunal had taken the victim’s take-home salary as the base salary for assessing the compensation.
“The purpose of assessing income in a claim for compensation is to determine the financial contribution which the deceased would have made to his family. Take-home salary cannot mechanically be treated as the income for this purpose, particularly, when the evidence of employer establishes a higher salary figure and the difference between the two figures represents deductions from the salary,” it observed and applied his total salary – or cost to company (CTC) – for making calculations for award of compensation to the victim’s family. The total compensation was assessed at ₹21 lakh, approximately ₹3 lakh more than ₹18 lakh awarded by the tribunal.
As the 50% negligence was attributed to the deceased driver, the family was entitled for 50% of total compensation and awarded ₹10 lakh with a rate of interest of 7.5% from the date of filing of the claim.