The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has raised the compensation awarded to the family of a motor accident victim after the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal erred in its calculation.
Justice J. Nisha Banu increased the compensation from ₹10.57 lakh to ₹15.38 lakh after the claims tribunal failed to take 25% of the income of the deceased as future prospects. The tribunal had notionally fixed the income of the deceased at ₹9,000.
The family of the deceased from Madurai moved the High Court Bench seeking an enhancement on the compensation amount granted by the claims tribunal. They claimed that at the time of the accident, the 45-year-old victim was working as a carpenter, earning ₹21,000 a month.
However, the claims tribunal had failed to add 25% of the income as future prospects as per guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, the family said. It was established during the course of the hearing that the family had failed to produce the documents pertaining to the income of the deceased before the claims tribunal. Therefore, this prompted the claims tribunal to fix the income at ₹9,000. The court ordered the settlement be made within eight weeks.
