The Supreme Court has suggested creating a special fund to compensate three
categories of vehicle accident victims who are usually shortchanged by insurance
firms.
First, there are those hurt or killed in hit-and-run accidents, where the
offending vehicle cannot be traced. Second come those who have accidents while
driving vehicles whose insurance had lapsed and was not renewed. Third are those
who, by pure chance, happened to be travelling in a vehicle that meets
with an accident: if, for instance, they had taken a lift from an unknown
driver. (The court calls them ‘gratuitous’ passengers.)
Hearing the case filed by Jai Prakash, a motor accident victim against the
National Insurance Company, the court said the fund’s corpus could be built up
by imposing a new cess on petrol or a one-time tax on every new vehicle sold.
A three-judge bench also had a slew of other suggestions to help these
accident victims. The clause relating to ‘third party insurance’ could be
amended, it proposed, to include all others — apart from the owner — involved in
the accident, so as to take care of gratuitous passengers too.
It also issued instructions to state director generals of police to ensure
that an ‘accident information report’ is sent to the Motor Accidents Claims
Tribunal within a month of the FIR being registered.