Motor Vehicles Act and Rules
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Motor Vehicles Act, compensation, unborn child
The Times of India, Aug 26, 2011
Dhananjay Mahapatra TNN
1.8L payout for death of fetus in road accident
The Supreme Court has awarded Rs 1.80 lakh as compensation under Motor Vehicles Act to Kusuma, who lost her unborn baby when her car collided with a bus. The task of a bench comprising Justice D K Jain and R M Lodha was made easier by the National Insurance Company, which didn’t challeng before the tribunal or high court Kusuma’s stand that an unborn child should be counted as a living being while claiming compensation.
Insurance co challenged only quantum of relief
The Supreme Court on rejected National Insurance Company’s appeal against the high court order that awarded compensation to a woman who lost her unborn child in an accident with a state transport bus.
The bench at the time of entertaining the appeal had found the question—can a fetus be considered a child for the purpose of compensation — important and appointed senior advocate U U Lalit as amicus curiae. It realized that the insurance company had not questioned the correctness of the award made by the tribunal, determining the amount of compensation “towards the loss of unborn child”. It had only challenged the quantum.
“The appellant company is now stopped from contending that an unborn child cannot be considered to be a child for the purpose of claiming compensation under Section 166 of the MV Act,” Justice Jain, writing the judgment said. “It is manifest from the judgment under challenge that the question for consideration before the HC in the claimant’s appeal was with regard to the quantum of compensation and not entitlement of claim for grievous injury to a 30-week-old child in uterus resulting in the birth of a stillborn child,” the SC said, upholding award of Rs 1.8 lakh to the woman.
