The Karnataka High Court has ruled that married daughters are entitled to compensation from insurance companies for the loss of their parents in accidents. The HC said the Supreme Court had held that even married sons are entitled to compensation in such cases.”This court also cannot make any discrimination whether they are married sons or married daughters and therefore the mere contention that the married daughters of the deceased are not entitled to compensation cannot be accepted,” it said.
A single judge of Justice HC Sandesh was hearing an appeal filed by an insurance company challenging the award of compensation to the married daughters of one Renuka (57), who was killed in an accident on April 12, 2012, near Yamanur, Hubballi, north Karnataka.Renuka’s husband, three daughters and a son were looking for a replacement. The Motor Accident Claims Tribunal awarded the family members a compensation of Rs 5,91,600 with six per cent annual interest.
The insurance company challenged this in the HC saying that married daughters cannot claim compensation and also that they are not dependents. The award of compensation under the heading “loss of dependency” was therefore incorrect. The insurer argued that compensation should have been awarded only under “property loss”. However, the HC said that dependency does not only mean financial dependency. Although dependency is a relevant criterion for claiming compensation for loss of dependency, this does not mean that financial dependency is the “ark of the covenant”.
Addiction includes gratuitous service addiction, physical addiction, emotional addiction and psychological addiction which can never be compared in terms of money, he said. The court also rejected other objections of the insurance company, including doubts about the age of the deceased and her income. The warranty certificate for the sewing machine purchased by the deceased came in handy for the Tribunal to calculate her income at Rs 4,500 per month. The HC rejected the insurer’s contention that the Tribunal had awarded excessive compensation and dismissed its appeal.
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