By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Friday issued fresh notice on a petition seeking higher compensation by parents of 29 school children who were drowned when their bus plunged into the Yamuna river at the Wazirabad bridge in November 1997.
A bench of Justice S.B. Sinha issued a fresh notice to the driver of the bus to remove a technical hitch in deciding the petition at the earliest, as the law requires hearing all the concerned parties before arriving at a decision.
The apex court had to issue a fresh notice to the driver, despite the fact that other respondents to the petition, including the bus owner and the National Insurance Company, had responded to the court's earlier notice, issued last year.
The parents of the dead children approached the apex court last year, challenging a Delhi High Court order which granted a hike of Rs.75,000 over the compensation to them decided by a Motor Accident Claim Tribunal.
In the petition to the apex court, the bereaved families sought a compensation of at least Rs.1 million for the death of each child.
Advocate Yudhisthir Singh said in the petition that the court needed to award higher compensation to the families as per the principles laid down by the apex court in another judgement, known as Lata Wadhwa case in 2001.
In that case, involving an accident in 1989, the apex court had granted a compensation of Rs.200,000 for children in age group of five to 10 years and of Rs.410,000 for those in 10 to 15 age group.
Singh said in his petition that the high court had ignored the apex court principles for fixing the compensation amount and endorsed the paltry compensation of between Rs.135,000 to Rs.155,000 and had given a meagre hike of Rs.75,000.
Singh submitted that since the amount of compensation awarded in 1989 was over Rs.400,000, the award in the present case should be hiked in view of the increase in cost of living.
The high court failed to appreciate the need for enhanced compensation as all the children were brilliant in their studies and had the potential for bright careers if their lives had not been cut short by the tragic accident, Singh told the court.