In absence of insurance cover of vehicle the onus of paying accident compensation amount falls on the registered owner of the vehicle even if someone else was driving it. The income, marital status and number of dependents determine the amount of compensation to the victims in the Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal (MACT).
It is a common practice among the vehicle owners to ignore the renewal of the insurance cover of their vehicle. In case of accidents the offending vehicle owner is liable to pay the amount of compensation and if the vehicle is insured the insurance company takes up the liability of paying the compensation amount.
The senior counsel, Hari Om Singh Yadav explained that normally the accident victim’s family files two separate cases. In the first one, cases under section 279 of IPC for rash and negligent driving and 304 A of IPC in case of death are filed against the driver of the vehicle. He said that apart from this, the victim’s family can file a case claiming compensation in the MACT court in which the entire liability of paying the compensation amount falls on the registered owner of the vehicle. “It is here the role of insurance comes into play. If the vehicle is not insured even under Third party insurance cover then the vehicle owner has to pay whatever compensation the court orders,” Yadav added. He said that the court takes into account the age, income, marital status and dependents into account while calculating the amount of compensation. The noted advocate explained that if the victim is unmarried then 50 percent of his annual income is considered for calculation and if the victim is married with less than four children then two- thirds of his annual income is taken for calculation of compensation. In case of victim having more than four children then three- fourth of his annual income is considered for calculation of compensation. The income so derived is multiplied with a factor which varies with the age. Yadav informed that the multiplication factor is 15 for age 0-15, 18 for 15-25, 17 for 25-30, 16 for 30-35, and 15 for 35-40 age groups and so on. The copy of FIR, post mortem report, police investigation report and papers of the offending vehicle need to be produced in the MACT court and the cases take at least three to four years to settle.
Insuring the vehicle does not necessarily mean that the insurance company is bound the pay the compensation. In cases involving the vehicle being driven by person without having driving license or driving of vehicle under influence of alcohol, the insurance company refuses the claim under the policy guidelines.
It is learnt that in the MACT court of Dehradun, 300-325 cases are filed every year by the accident victims and around one third offending vehicles are not insured. Recently, the MACT court of Dehradun has awarded a compensation of `1.25 crore to the family of an NRI accident victim.
The Senior Branch Manager (SBM) of United India Insurance Company, V S Kunwar said that people should remember to renew the insurance cover of their vehicles. He suggested that one should at least go for third party insurance cover which is very cheap.