Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has ruled that dependents of a road accident victim who are not legal heirs are entitled to compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act if they can prove their loss of dependency before accident claims tribunals. The order’s author, Justice R Vijayakumar, stated that dependency is the criterion for awarding accident compensation and that the mere status of ‘legal heir’ is insufficient to make a claim. He added that if a legal heir is not a dependent of the deceased, he or she is not entitled to compensation for loss of dependency.
The judge said that the Motor Vehicles Act “calls for a liberal and wider interpretation to serve the real purpose. Hence, every legal heir who suffered on account of death of a person in a motor vehicle accident should have a remedy for realization of the compensation. A legal representative may include any person who intermeddles with the estate of the deceased and therefore, such a person does not necessarily have to be a legal heir.” He also cited Supreme Court and Madras High Court decisions indicating that the right to file a claim is not limited to legal heirs such as wife, parents, and children. The judge made the observation while hearing an appeal filed by Saritha (name changed) against the payment of road accident compensation to her husband’s second wife, who died in a car accident in Madurai in 2010.
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