The High Court of Karnataka has enhanced compensation to ₹21.8 lakh, from ₹4.4 lakh awarded by the tribunal in 2010, to a girl who had become 50% physically disable due to injuries caused in a road accident in 2006 when she was 7 years old.
The Court held that the girl had become ‘100% functionally disabled’ due to nature of disability and required to be paid higher compensation for loss of earning capacity.
Human being no machine
Justice P. Krishna Bhat passed the order recently while allowing an appeal filed in 2010 by Belagavi-based Priyanka Pradeep Gavade, who is now 23 years, questioning the tribunal’s order.
On the contention of insurance company that girl is not in such physically debilitated condition to fix functional disability at 100%, the Court said that “accepting such contention would reduce the approach of viewing a human being to that of a machine.”
“The medical expert has stated that she has suffered 50% physical disability for the whole body. But, the picture one gets from the evidence of the medical expert and perusal of the medical records is very bleak about the future prospects of this minor claimant. Human body cannot be treated like an assemblage of its constituent parts,” the Court observed.
“...if the medical evidence is clinching on the aspect that a person, who is a minor child cannot straighten one of the lower limbs and one of the upper limbs has lost its power for use, it is as good as the human body becoming useless so far as the person’s ability to work and earn livelihood is concerned. In the said larger sense, the minor claimant in this case has become functionally 100% disabled,” the Court observed.
‘Harsh and inhuman’
Considering the nature of disability, the Court said that “it is harsh and inhuman to hold that she is functional to some extent and in terms of her earning capacity in the labour market she would have some demand.”
“Unfortunately, human life is not mathematics. It is something more complex. Stark reality is that for such a person who has lost the proper use of some of the essential limbs in terms of their utility for earning purpose, it is over simplistic to say that he/she can earn some income by resorting to limb-wise arithmetic,” the Court observed.
The Court directed the insurance company to pay difference in compensation amount with 6% interest from the date of filling of petition.
