The widow and the mother of an accident victim have been awarded a compensation of Rs 54.14 lakh by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT).
Dilip Pathak (then aged 35 years) was going to Shirdi in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district on August 6, 2011 with his friends when their car rammed into a stationary truck on the Kalyan-Nagar road in Thane.
Pathak, who was sitting next to the driver, received grievous injuries and died on the spot.
The petitioners told the tribunal that the accident occurred due to the negligence of the truck driver as he had not turned on the vehicle’s tail lights when it was in the stationary position.
They sought a compensation of Rs 70 lakh.
The deceased worked as a fitter in a shipping company based out of Mumbai and earned USD 1,236 per month, they told the tribunal.
MACT member N M Waghmare noted that the petitioners have alleged that the offending truck did not have tail lights or reflector when it stopped all of a sudden on the road.
Therefore, the car driver could not control his vehicle and it rammed into the truck.
“On thoughtful consideration of factual aspects of the matter, it can be safely held that the offending truck was responsible for the accident,” Waghmare said in his order passed sometime back.
The MACT ordered the truck owner and the vehicle’s insurer to pay 60 per cent of the total 54.14 lakh compensation to the man’s widow and the remaining 40 per cent to his mother.
The deceased’s father was not eligible for compensation, Waghmare said, but did not give any reasons for it.
