Three years after a 20-year-old air hostess from Nagaland died in an accident at an amusement park in Chennai, her mother was today given a compensation of Rs 25 lakh.
Justice P N Prakash, who ensured that the Demand Draft for the amount was handed over to Afia Magh's mother Sasule Magh, also quashed criminal proceedings against the park's proprietors E V Perumalsamy Reddy, his wife Rajeswari, 50, and son EVR Santhosh Reddy, 31.
Afia, an airhostess with Kingfisher Airlines, had visited EVP Theme Park at Sembarambakkam with nine friends on October 2 2012. While she was enjoying the 'octopus ride', she fell down and suffered serious injuries. She died at a private hospital later in the day.
Investigations and eyewitness accounts revealed that the accident was caused by the game operator who rushed through security procedures due to heavy crowd.
A complaint was lodged with police saying the mishap happened due to 'negligence' of the park.
As a consumer court case filed by Sasule is pending, the judge said adding that in case that court awarded more than Rs 25 lakh, the balance would be handed over by the owners to Afia's family.
In case the award was less, her kin need not return the money to the owners. The family had sought a compensation of Rs 50.4 lakh.
Sasule Magh came from Nagaland today and collected the DD from the park's counsel R C Paul Kanagaraj.
Advocate and consumer law specialist Vasugi Ramanan, who represented the family, said she had not taken any money so far from the victim's family to conduct the case.
The park owner E V Periyasamy Reddy was arrested on November 20, 2012, while under treatment at a hospital and remanded in custody later. His wife and son obtained anticipatory bail.
The Reddys had sought quashing of criminal proceedings against them, contending that just because a precious life was lost in the accident, no motive could be attributed to them for the occurrence, which took place once due to failure in the mechanism of the game ride.
As promoters, they were not directly involved in the day-to-day working of the amusement park, they had submitted.
