Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: June 5, 2022, at 17:01 IST
The High Court of Karnataka has held that the physical disability caused to the limbs, even without amputation, must be considered in when calculating compensation under the category of “loss of future prospects” when determining loss of future earnings in Motor Vehicle Cases.
“Judges sometimes make law if the statutes made by Parliament fall short of meeting the requirements of the time,”the Court said.
The Judgement was issued by a Division Bench comprising of Justices Krishna S. Dixit and P. Krishna Bhat, who rejected New India Assurance Company Ltd.’s argument that disability without amputation cannot be considered for “loss of future prospects.”
The Petitioner Abdul from Hubballi was given more than Rs 6. 1 lakh in compensation plus 9% interest (including Rs 2. 7 lakh for loss of future prospects) by the Division bench.
Moreover, the insurance company had challenged an award made by a Hubballi Tribunal in favour of a 40-year-old tailor who had suffered serious injuries when a State Road Transport corporation bus rammed into a parked truck in 2009.
Abdul had an open fracture below the left knee as a result of the collision. He paid Rs 1.9 lakh on DCP plates and screws, as well as K-wire fixation, to repair the fracture. He spent 49 days in the hospital.
He subsequently filed a claim with the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal in Hubballi, which awarded him Rs 5. 2 lakh plus 9% interest on September 17, 2016. Because the vehicle was partially parked on the road, the tribunal imposed a 30% culpability on the insurer.
Abdul challenged the ruling, claiming that he was entitled to more compensation. The truck’s insurer, New India Assurance Company Limited, questioned the tribunal’s order, claiming that the whole culpability should have been fixed on NWKRTC, claiming that the bus driver was at fault. The division bench, on the other hand, approved both appeals in part, stating that the tribunal could not have overlooked the fact that the claimant needed a completely functional pair of lower limbs to work as a tailor.
The Bench stated that, there is no scientific method for making an exact mathematical estimation of the correlation between the physical disability suffered and the impact it would have on his reduced earning capacity over a period of time in the future. Therefore some educated guesswork is inevitable.