Engineer’s parents awarded Rs 17 L as compensation

A Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) here has awarded over Rs 17 lakh as compensation to the parents of a 22-year-old engineer, who died in a road mishap in 2008, but denied any relief to his wife who remarried after his death. The tribunal directed the New India Assurance Company Ltd, with which the offending Innova car was insured, to pay Rs 17,05,000 to the parents of deceased Manoj Kumar. It, however, did not give any compensation to Manoj’s wife saying she was not entitled to it because she has already re-married after his death in March this year. “In view of the statement of the prosecution witness and the record of the criminal case regarding the accident, it is proved on record that accident was caused due to rash and negligent driving of the offending vehicle that is, an Innova car on March 29, 2008 which was being driven by respondent no 1 (Arun Kumar) and the deceased Manoj Kumar sustained fatal injuries in the said accident,” said MACT Presiding Officer Surinder Kumar Sharma. The incident took place in March 2008 when Kumar, a resident of Bhajanpura in North East Delhi, reached Murad Nagar in Ghaziabad on his motorcycle, while the offending car came from a wrong side and hit him. Manoj’s parents said when he had reached in front of a factory gate at Murad Nagar, an Innova car coming at a high speed from Ghaziabad, hit his motorcycle from back after overtaking a state roadways bus from the wrong side. Arun Kumar, the driver of the Dehradun based-car dragged the motorcycle for a considerable distance. The victim was taken to a hospital where he died. Manoj, who was working as an electronic engineer in a firm in Noida, was earning Rs 20,000 per month, his family had told the tribunal.