Sikkim High Court upholds Rs 85 lakh award to brothers-in-law of road accident victim

“The question is whether the claimants can be treated as dependents of the deceased sister-in-law. There is no hard and fast rule for defining the expression ‘dependent’,” the court said on August 10.

The order noted that there are specific pleadings in the claim petition, duly supported by the evidence, that the Claimants were financially dependent upon the income earned by the deceased and her husband.

“They have produced Income Tax Returns of the deceased to establish that the business run by the deceased and her husband constituted the sole source of the income,” it noted.

A family trip and fatal accident

The victim sister-in-law was married to the younger brother of the claimants. The couple, along with their two minor children, had travelled to Sikkim as tourists. While travelling to Lachung in a vehicle insured by National Insurance Company, the vehicle fell about 700 feet off a cliff, resulting in the deaths of all four.

Chief Justice A Muhamed Mustaque heard the matter on August 10.

The siblings subsequently sought compensation, claiming they were financially dependent on the woman and her husband’s jointly run business, which was their family’s sole source of livelihood. In 2024, the MACT  awarded them Rs 85.59 lakh with 6 per cent annual interest. The insurer challenged the award, arguing that the adult siblings were not dependents.

They argued that the term “legal representative” under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act should be interpreted broadly, allowing persons who suffered financial loss due to the death to maintain a compensation claim even if they were not legal heirs in the strict sense.

The insurance company argued that the claimants, being adult siblings-in-law of the deceased, were not financially dependent on her. It contended that they had independent sources of income and could, at most, claim compensation under conventional or non-pecuniary heads. The insurer also argued that the claimants had inherited the deceased’s business, leaving no actual loss of dependency.

Person need not necessarily be legal heir: Order

The court held that the claimants were “legal representatives” of the victim under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act. A person need not necessarily be a legal heir to maintain a compensation claim.

The court noted that the claimants had produced Income Tax Returns showing that the business run by the deceased and her husband was the family’s sole source of income. The insurer failed to produce evidence showing that the claimants had independent income.

It further observed that there was no evidence that the claimants continued operating the business after the deaths. Therefore, the court accepted their plea of dependency and upheld the computation of compensation.

The court also discussed Section 21 of the Hindu Succession Act, concerning simultaneous deaths, and held that the claimants could arguably have succeeded to the deceased children’s estate and potentially been entitled to an even higher compensation.

“Upon their subsequent demise, the claimants, being their natural legal heirs under the applicable provisions of the Hindu Succession Act, would have succeeded to their estate. Viewed from that perspective, the Claimants could arguably have become entitled to an even higher amount of compensation than that awarded in the present proceedings,” it said.