In one of the highest ever compensations awarded in a motor accident case, a Delhi court has ordered an insurance company to cough up an astronomical Rs 14.17 crore (Rs 141.7 million) to the family of a rich businessman who died after his car collided with a punctured vehicle stranded in the middle of a highway.
The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, in a landmark ruling, asked the Oriental Insurance Company to pay the whopping amount and said the compensation amount was arrived at calculating the income of the deceased Rajneesh Kumar Goel, "Who was earning crores of rupees from investments, rent, business of paper and exports."
Noting that the 39-year old Goel's annual income was over Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million), out of which he spent about Rs 1.41 crore (Rs 14.1 million) on his family, tribunal judge Girish Kathpalia justified the huge compensation and said "The compensation must neither be pittance nor a bonanza."
"What might be a bonanza for one might be reasonable for the other...a golden balance has to be struck in arriving at a compensation that is just and reasonable," the court said.
"Conscious efforts by a tribunal to reach a low or even a moderate figure of compensation, which would be pittance to the victim placed in her atypical circumstances, would abrogate the criterion of just and reasonable compensation," it added.
On the night of August 28, 2000, Goel was driving his family in a car from Delhi towards Karnal via a non-lit section of G T Karnal road when it dashed against a Tata Sumo, parked on the central verge of the highway without its indicators on.