High Court ups compensation to kin of deceased BSNL engineer

The Karnataka High Court has granted an increased compensation of Rs 79,56,875 with 6% interest to the family of a deceased BSNL Engineer.

Justices KS Mudagal and Vijayakumar A Patil, forming a division bench, dismissed the accident tribunal’s earlier decision that assigned 20% contributory negligence to the deceased Engineer.

The incident took place on November 27, 2013, when Narayan U Hegde was riding his motorcycle near Maharani College Junction Under-Pass, Palace Road. A private bus collided with his motorcycle at the junction. Hegde was taken to St Martha’s Hospital where he died the same day.

Hegde’s mother, wife and daughter approached the tribunal requesting Rs 1.6 crore compensation. The tribunal awarded Rs 46,08,000 with 6% annual interest on July 17, 2015, whilst attributing 20% accident responsibility to the deceased. Subsequently, both parties (the claimants and the insurance company) approached the high court. The claimants maintained that the bus driver bore complete responsibility for the accident.

The insurance company contested this, suggesting that the motorcycle’s position under the bus’s rear wheel indicated the victim’s negligence. The bus driver’s statement supported this interpretation. The division bench examined the Motor Vehicle Inspector’s report, which indicated that the motorcycle was travelling on the road’s right edge when the bus moved from the left to the extreme right, making contact with the motorcycle.

“The tribunal failed to consider the aforesaid evidence judiciously and committed an error in imputing 20% negligence to the victim. Moreover, the driver of the bus is not an independent witness as he will be interested in seeing that he is exonerated in the criminal case. The Tribunal lost sight of the said fact also,” the bench said. The court noted that the deceased was aged 52 when the accident occurred and earned Rs 86,983 as gross salary in his position as Sub Divisional Engineer in Broadband Network Circle, BSNL, Bengaluru.