Married daughter compensation: Delhi HC says marriage or a job cannot bar a motor accident claim
Justice Anish Dayal said tribunals must examine the nature of dependency instead of sorting claimants into dependants and non-dependants.
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The Delhi High Court has ruled that a married and earning daughter, son, spouse or sibling cannot be shut out of a motor accident claim only because they are married, employed or living apart, Verdictum and LiveLaw reported on 12 November. Justice Anish Dayal’s married daughter compensation ruling raised an award to one woman by over Rs 12 lakh.
Married daughter compensation: what the court held
Verdictum reported that the Single Bench held that dependency does not decide whether a legal representative can claim under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. Tribunals must look at the nature of the dependency instead of sorting claimants into dependants and non-dependants. LiveLaw said the court told tribunals to decide each case on its own facts.
Key numbers
- Over Rs 12 lakh: the increase in compensation for the married woman who lost her father and sister, per Verdictum.
- 31 August 2015: the date of the accident that killed Meenu, 23, and her father Chamanlal, 56, according to Verdictum.
- 12 March 2019: the date of the tribunal award, which gave Rs 9,27,100 for Meenu’s death and Rs 13,15,600 for Chamanlal’s, per Verdictum.
- Six: the number of guideposts the court laid down on dependency.
The accident and the insurer’s challenge
The court heard cross-appeals from United India Insurance Company and a woman named Savita, over compensation for the deaths of her father Chamanlal and sister Meenu in the August 2015 accident, LiveLaw reported. The tribunal had treated Savita as a non-dependent legal representative and awarded one-third of the computed loss of dependency as a notional loss of estate.
The insurer argued that Savita was married, had her own family and was not financially dependent on her father. It also argued that her sister earned about Rs 15,000 a month from tuition classes and gave Savita Rs 8,000 towards her needs, LiveLaw said.
What the judge said on dependency
“A person cannot be straightway shunted out as not being dependent merely because they are married and earning,” Justice Dayal observed, Verdictum reported. He added that an insurance company, driver or owner who is otherwise liable “cannot be completely absolved from payment merely because the family structure of the deceased does not fit within a conventional category of dependency.”
The court held that dependency should show up in the deduction for personal expenses and in how compensation is shared. A wholly dependent claimant gets a larger share than a partially dependent one, Verdictum said.
Section 166 and the six guideposts
One guidepost says all legal representatives can maintain a claim under that section even without proving financial dependency. Another says dependency must be assessed on the facts of each case. LiveLaw added that the nature and extent of dependency still matters when the quantum and the split of compensation are decided.
The Keith Rowe method
The tribunal had followed the Keith Rowe approach to non-dependent claimants. The High Court held that calculating a notional loss of estate in that way may not be relevant, because it does not fit the principles the court set out.
What happens next
The order came from a Single Bench, and LiveLaw quoted the court as saying these issues will depend “on a case-to-case basis.” Tribunals and courts hearing a married daughter compensation claim will have to weigh the facts before them, and insurers can no longer rely on marital status alone to deny a share.
Families of road accident victims often include married or earning children who have been treated as non-dependants and given smaller awards. The ruling tells tribunals to assess each claimant on the facts, which can raise payouts and shift how insurers argue these cases.