Supreme Court Modifies High Court Order on Motor Accident Claim, Cites Error in Calculating Compensation.


06 August 2025 Civil Appeals >> Civil & Consumer Law  

The case of B. Lokesh v/s Suryanarayana Raju Jaggaraju & Another involves a 38-year-old tailor who was injured in an accident on November 19, 2016, when his car collided with a parked lorry on a flyover in Bengaluru. The appellant sustained severe injuries, including skull fractures and a permanent visual impairment.

Both the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) and the Karnataka High Court had previously awarded compensation but applied a 20% deduction for contributory negligence on the part of the appellant. The Supreme Court upheld this finding of contributory negligence, as the appellant's counsel did not contest it.

 
 

However, the Supreme Court found fault with the High Court's compensation calculation on two key points:

Future Prospects: The High Court had excluded compensation for "future prospects" for the appellant, who was self-employed. The Supreme Court referenced prior rulings (Santosh Devi v. National Insurance Company Limited and National Insurance Company Limited v. Pranay Sethi) to state that even self-employed individuals are entitled to future prospects. The court added 40% to the appellant's income for this purpose.

Disability Assessment: The High Court and MACT had arbitrarily reduced the appellant's functional disability to 35%, ignoring the un-rebutted medical evidence from a neuropsychologist (PW3 Dr. Prathibha Sharan) that assessed the disability at 41.77%. The Supreme Court accepted the higher, evidence-based disability percentage.

Based on these revisions, the Supreme Court recalculated the total compensation. The final award was enhanced to Rs. 16,60,891, an increase from the High Court's previous amount. This new amount will carry an interest rate of 6% per annum from the date of the original claim petition. The insurance company, M/s Shriram General Insurance Co. Ltd., was directed to deposit the enhanced amount within six weeks.