‘Housewife puts heart, soul, sweat for family': MACT recognises homemaker's contribution, awards `20L in compensation ruling
The tribunal, presided by Dr Harpreet Kaur, was hearing a plea filed by Gurbachan Singh (husband of the deceased), two minor children, and Harbans Kaur and Baljit Singh (parents of the deceased). The plea sought compensation of Rs 35 lakh, on account of death of Sukhwinder Kaur, 32, in a motor vehicular accident.
According to the plea, on March 28, 2019, Sukhwinder, along with her husband, was going on foot to village Bahadurgarh after paying obeisance in Sheetla Meta temple situated at Sundra village. At about 7 pm, when they reached the area of Nimbua village, Sushil Kumar, who was riding a motorcycle, came from behind at a high speed and hit Sukhwinder, the plea said. As a result, she fell down on the road and suffered multiple injuries including head injury, due to which she died.
According to the complainant, Sukhwinder was a housewife, and the petitioners are entitled to receive the compensation of Rs 35 lakh on account of 'love, care, affection and multifarious services' given by the deceased woman to the claimants.
The driver of the motorcycle, Sushil Kumar, failed to appear before court, despite being issued notice, therefore was proceeded against ex parte in 2021. Upon notice, the insurance company — United India Insurance Company Limited appeared — through its counsel filed a written statement, in which it raised preliminary objections regarding maintainability, and while denying all the material averments having bearing on the amount of compensation, prayed for the dismissal of the claim petition.
The tribunal, in view of the recitals of the FIR, the postmortem report, and testimony of Gurbachan Singh (an eye witness to the accident), said that it 'stands amply established that the accident had taken place, due to rash and negligent driving of offending vehicle which was being driven by Kumar, and the same resulted into death of Sukhwinder'.
On the income of the deceased, the tribunal noted that it is claimed by the claimant that at the time of her death, the victim woman was a housewife and rendering multifarious services including household services to the claimants.
'No doubt, all these services can be performed by a maid servant. However, it would not be fair to equate the services of a wife with that of a maid as the former puts her heart, soul and sweat to serve her family and that too 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Therefore, the claimants are entitled to adequate compensation in lieu of the loss of gratuitous services rendered by the deceased,' the tribunal held.
It also cited a matter decided by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2014, in which the court had fixed the notional income of the deceased housewife as Rs 9,000 per month, while observing that housewife is something more than a 'mere skilled worker and it would be unreasonable to underestimate the contribution of her as housewife'.
Keeping the notional annual income of the deceased as Rs 9,000 and further adding other expenses, the tribunal ordered the insurance company to pay Rs 20.06 lakh to the claimants of the deceased. However, it clarified that though the insurance company has a right to recover the claim amount from the owner-insured and the driver of the motorcycle (Raj Kumar and Sushil Kumar).
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