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Synopsis

The Allahabad High Court recently awarded Rs 50 Lakh compensation to the widow of a government employee who died of severe burn injuries in 2010 while resting in his official residential accommodation.

The bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Shiv Shanker Prasad opined that since the deceased had died as the consequence of a blast that had occurred at a government facility, therefore, the tortious act was attributable to the State and its agents only.

Court rejected the government's claim that the incident was purely accidental. It held that "whichever way the occurrence might be looked at, the accidental occurrence remained a wrongful act arising from neglect".

Court further held that though the deceased was asleep at his official residence after his work hours, it could not be said that he was not on duty as he had been given that house in connection with his job. 

The woman had filed a plea before the high court seeking compensation of Rs. 6 crores for her husband's accidental death. The deceased was posted as Deputy Director, Animal Husbandry, Mirzapur Division. In connection with that posting, he had been allotted official accommodation. On July 17, 2010, a blast occurred at the storage facility of the Rural Engineering Services in the adjoining premise. As a result, Maxphalt/Bitumen seeped into the residential premises of the deceased causing him 70% burn injuries.

The high court noted that it was an admitted fact that the blast and resultant Bitumen flow had caused the deceased deep burn injuries and therefore, "such tortious act was liable to be compensated by the wrongdoer under the Fatal Accidents Act, 1855 (the Act)".

Court said, "We have no doubt as to the sustainability of the same as the tortious event is attributable to the conduct of the employees/servants of the State who stored the molten Maxphalt/Bitumen in the tank that suffered a blast leading to its seepage into the official residence of the deceased causing the injuries and his death,".

Court emphasised that the act of wrongful neglect or default that may have caused the blast at the storage facility to the residence of the deceased, was to be examined in criminal and/or departmental proceedings, however, since the deceased was the unsuspecting and non-contributory victim of that tortious act, the claim to compensation did arise.

While noting that under the Act, such action of seeking compensation may normally be brought by filing a proper civil suit, court held that in the present case, the tortious act was attributable to the State and its agents only.

"...the victim of tortious act was none other than a government employee. For that reason, we required the higher functionaries of the State Government to give the claim due consideration and resolve the same," court ordered. 

Therefore, while stressing that the language of the Act made it clear that the very nature of a tortious liability was not dependent on whether the deceased was on active government duty or whether the occurrence took place while he was performing such government duty, therefore, the State remained liable to first compensate the deceased's widow for the tortious act committed by the actual tort feasor, who were government agencies and servants accountable to the respondents themselves.

While pointing out that it had already given the highest administrative functionaries of the State to ensure that justice is meted out expeditiously in the present case but to no avail, court decided the compensation amount by itself adopting a rough and ready method to compute the compensation.

Case Title: Smt. Shakuntala Devi v. State of U.P. and Others