Motor Vehicles Act

The Motor Accident Claim Tribunal (MACT) has power to award higher compensation than what is claimed by the claimant, if the claimant is eligible for more than what was originally claimed, says the SC in Mona Baghel & Others v Sajjan Singh Yadav & Others.

The Kerala High Court in Benny Mon v State of Kerala [2025:KER:22425] says, if a person is arrested for drunken driving under Section 185 of the MV Act, he has to be subjected to medical examination.

The Supreme Court (SC), in Parminder Singh v Honey Goyal & Others, issued directions to ensure direct transfer of motor accident claim compensation to claimants' bank accounts to minimize delays and ensure timely payments.

A legal representative under M V Act A legal representative is one, who suffers on account of death of a person due to a motor vehicle accident and need not…

The notional income of a minor aged 5 years in a motor accident claim should be fixed based on the minimum wages for skilled workers as per the state notification for Kerala, as per GO (P) No 56 /2017 Fin dated 28/4/2017 as the Second Schedule has been omitted, says the Kerala High Court in Master Jyotish Raj Krishna @ Jyothi Krishna v Sunny George & Others [ 2024:KER:87009].

Multiple claim petitions for the same accident are not maintainable, either under the Employee's Compensation Act or the Motor Vehicles Act, the Himachal Pradesh High Court says in Tata AIG General Insurance Company Ltd. v Shibi Devi [2024:HHC:14477].

The Supreme Court (SC) in United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Shimla v Tilak Singh & Others [2006 (4) SCC 404] and Oriental Insurance Co Ltd v Sudhakaran K V & Others [ 2008 (7) SCC 428] says that a pillion rider on a motorcycle is not a third party. But another bench has reservations about the view and referred the issue to a larger bench.

The future prospects cannot be deprived to both fixed-salary and self-employed individuals in motor vehicle accident compensation as they possess income growth potential due to inflation and career advancement, The Supreme Court (SC) says in Kavita Nagar & Others v The Oriental Insurance Co Ltd.

If the victim is not the earning member of the family, the compensation cannot be reduced on that pretext. So, in 1994, the legislature had fixed the income of a non-earning person at Rs 15,000/- per month and in case of a spouse, it would be one-third income of the spouse if he is an earning member, as per the Schedule II of the M V Act. The Schedule II has been removed by the 2019 amendment of the M V Act.

In simple personal injury cases, the compensation will be awarded only for expenses relating to treatment etc, loss of earnings and damages for pain and suffering. In grievous injury cases and permanent disability other items such as loss of future earning, future medical expenses, loss of amenities and loss of expectation in life can be added in arriving at just compensation when medical evidence corroborates with claimant’s evidence.

When information of a road accident is received in the Police Station, the Investigation Officer (IO), who investigates the accident, shall inspect the site of the accident, take photographs / videos of the scene of the accident and the vehicles involved in the accident and prepare a site plan drawn scale to scale, indicating the lay out and width etc of the roads or places, the position of the vehicles and persons involved and such other relevant facts.

To calculate just compensation in a death case, the first thing to be done is to calculate the annual income or dependency or multiplicand, after deducting the tax. Then deduct the personal expenses and living expenses from it. The resultant amount is termed as annual income or multiplicand or dependency. For this exercise the claimant must establish the age of the deceased, the income of the deceased and the number of dependents.