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Sr. Anthony @ Anthony Swamy v. Managing Director, KSRTC

Civil Appeal · 2020 INSC 421Decided 10 Jun 2020
Civil Appeal No. 2551 of 2020
Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman · Justice Navin Sinha · Justice B.R. Gavai

Background

The appellant, a painter by trade, lost his left leg above the knee after a KSRTC bus hit the lorry he was travelling behind due to rash driving in 2010. The Tribunal awarded roughly Rs. 4.08 lakh in compensation, which the High Court modestly raised to about Rs. 5.10 lakh, assessing his permanent disability at only 25% of the whole body despite the treating doctor's evidence that his physical disability was 75% of the limb (about 37.5% of the whole body) and that he could no longer do any manual work.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had reduced the disability percentage to 25% without any reasoning, contrary to the unrebutted medical evidence, and failed to properly apply the principle from Raj Kumar v. Ajay Kumar that compensation must reflect the actual loss of earning capacity, not just a mechanical disability percentage. Since the appellant, a manual labourer, was rendered completely unable to continue his vocation, his earning capacity was effectively wiped out, and the Court recalculated his future-earnings loss using the full 75% disability figure with a multiplier of 14. The total compensation was raised to Rs. 11,97,350 (from heads including loss of future earnings, future medical expenses for prosthetic replacements, and loss of amenities), payable with 6% interest from the date of the claim petition.

Lesson Learnt

Compensation for a disabling injury must be based on how much the specific injury actually destroys the victim's ability to earn in their own occupation, not on an unexplained, generic disability percentage applied to the whole body.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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