TNN; Mar 25, 2011,
COIMBATORE: Delay in paying compensation to a bus accident victim landed the state-owned Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (STC) in trouble on Thursday. Following a city court order, a state-owned bus was confiscated in Coimbatore on Thursday for delaying compensation to a couple who had lost their son in an accident four years ago.
Hours after the bus was "seized" from Gandhipuram central bus stand, STC officials rushed in to hand over a cheque for Rs 1.60 lakh to the court. "The transport corporation had not responded to any of the earlier court orders. But they immediately paid the compensation when the bus was seized," said advocate N Jaganathan, who had appeared for the couple from Ernakulam.
On July 6, 2006, 21-year-old V Amal Augustine, a final year Catering science student of Bishop Appasamy college here, was riding pillion on a motor cycle on the Sathyamangalam road. When the motorcycle slowed down at a traffic signal, a bus overtook and threw Amal off the vehicle. He was rushed to a nearby private hospital, where he died. "We lost our only son," said M V Augustine, father of Amal. A tailor in Ernakulam, Augustine didn't get due compensation.
Frustrated, he filed a petition before the third additional sub judge court seeking a direction to the STC to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh. On April 2, 2007, the court ordered a compensation of Rs 1.36 lakh along with an interest of 7.5 per cent for the parents.
But STC sought more time to make the payment, prompting Augustine to file a petition seeking "attachment" of the properties of the corporation. On February 25, 2010, the third additional sub judge, ordered the attachment of the bus within March 29.
In a similar case last week, a city court ordered the confiscation of a government bus after STC failed to pay compensation to one of its employees who was maimed in a road mishap in 2006. The court rapped STC for the delay and ordered immediate seizure of the vehicle on Monday. STC is yet to make the payment.
Jagatheesan, a bus conductor, suffered multiple fractures when his bus collided with a lorry near Udumalai in December 2006. The district munsif court ordered STC to pay Rs 16 lakh as compensation but the corporation challenged the verdict in the High Court.
However the HC dismissed the petition following which it was ordered that Jagatheesan should be paid an amount of Rs 19.2 lakh along with interest at the earliest.
According to a response filed by the State Transport department to a RTI query, transport corporations in the state owe Rs 324 crore as compensation to accident victims in the state.
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