Kin of man who died in road mishap awarded Rs 15.69 lakh

A motor accident claims tribunal here has ordered owners of two vehicles and their insurance firms to jointly pay Rs 15.69 lakh to a 42-year-old woman from Navi Mumbai, who lost her husband in a road mishap in 2012.
District judge and Thane Motor Accident claims Tribunal (MACT) member K D Vadane in his judgement pronounced recently ordered the vehicle owners and Cholamandalam General Insurance Company Ltd, and Reliance General Insurance Company -- insurers of the two vehicles -- to pay Rs 15.69 lakh to Surjit Kaur Khandpur, wife of deceased Tejindar Singh Khandpur, and her two children.
The claimant's counsel told the tribunal that Tejinder worked with a distributor company of Reliance Group and drew a salary of Rs 15,000 per month.

According to claimant's counsel, Tejinder was travelling on a motorcycle from Panvel towards Sion on July 4, 2012. When he reached near Vashi creek bridge, a tempo being driven in a rash and negligent manner rammed into his motorbike from behind and as a result he fell on the road and was run over by a speeding tanker.
He sustained multiple injuries and succumbed during treatment at a hospital, the tribunal was told.
The counsel told that it was due to rash and negligent driving by both the drivers that the accident took place.

Owners of the two vehicles did not appear before the tribunal, and hence, the matter was declared ex-parte against them.

The insurance companies appeared and contested the claim on various grounds
The judge after hearing the claimants' counsel and respondents, concluded that it was a case of contributory negligence on the part of the vehicle owners with 75 per cent negligence on the part of tempo owner and 25 per cent on the part of the tanker owner.
Therefore, the two owners and their insurance companies were liable to pay the compensation in that proportion.
The compensation amount included Rs 13.44 lakh towards future loss of dependency.