Government sets up schedule to provide relief to accident victims

The government on Thursday set a schedule to examine the problems ailing the insurance sector in the field of accident insurance. This comes close on the heels of the Supreme Court suggesting the government to create a special fund for compensating accident victims by charging a cess on sale of petrol or a one-time premium on sale of new motor vehicles.

Judgments of various courts and deficiencies in the Motor Vehicles Act regarding payment of compensation have plagued road accident victims. Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam assured the Bench headed by Justice RV Raveendran that the government would tackle the issue of providing insurance to passengers in goods vehicles.

However, when the case was taken up on Thursday, lawyers dealing with accidents and insurance companies pointed out the problems faced by both victims and insurance companies.

Insurance companies said that under the auspices of the Delhi High Court, a draft scheme to solve the problems had been worked out and it could be incorporated in the Supreme Court order.

The Supreme Court posted the case for February 1, when it will first hear the problem of cheques issued by owners as compensation which are dishonoured by banks. Apparently, there are a huge number of such cases which require a uniform law. After this issue is sorted out, the court will go into some 20 issues that have cropped up during the working of the Motor Vehicles Act.