Almost 10 years after a 25-year-old Army officer lost his life in a road accident, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that the amount paid under a group insurance scheme could not have been deducted from compensation awarded under the Motor Vehicles Act.
The ruling came after the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) reduced the compensation payable to the deceased officer’s family from Rs 98.43 lakh to just Rs 38.43 lakh by deducting the Rs 60 lakh received under the scheme.
The matter was placed before Justice Pankaj Jain’s Bench after the claimant in the case filed an appeal in 2018 seeking enhancement of the compensation awarded by the claims tribunal at Kurukshetra. The court, during the course of the hearing, was told that the claims tribunal had assessed compensation at Rs 98.43 lakh, but reduced the payable amount to Rs 38.43 lakh.
Deciding the eight-year-old matter in just one hearing, Justice Jain drew a distinction between benefits received under the group insurance scheme and financial assistance extended by the State under service rules.
After hearing rival contentions, Justice Jain ruled that the amount paid to the family of the deceased Army officer under the scheme could not be deducted from the compensation awarded under the Motor Vehicles Act.
The Bench made it clear that the claims tribunal erred in deducting Rs 60 lakh under the scheme, while determining the amount payable as compensation following the army officer’s death on September 13, 2016.
In his detailed judgment, Justice Jain observed: “The group insurance scheme cannot be related to financial assistance given by the state under Service Rules, wherein the compensation is paid by the insurer after receiving the premium.”
Holding that the deduction could not be sustained, Justice Jain ruled: “This Court finds that the tribunal erred in deducting the amount of Rs 60 lakh from the compensation awarded. Accordingly, the award to that effect is set aside."
Allowing the appeal to that extent, the High Court restored the amount deducted by the tribunal. Justice Jain, at the same time, observed that the tribunal did not award compensation for loss of consortium or loss of estate.
“Nothing has been paid on account of loss of consortium and loss of estate, claimant is held entitled for the amount of Rs 48,400 for loss of consortium and Rs 18,000 for loss of estate,” Justice Jain observed before parting with the order.
