New Delhi, May 30 (PTI): Delhi High Court today refused to stay the Rs 14.17-crore compensation awarded to the family of a businessman who died after his car collided with a vehicle stranded in the middle of a highway.

The compensation is one of the highest ever ordered by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal.

Justice .P. Dwivedi issued a notice to the family members of the victim, Rajneesh Kumar Goel, a resident of west Delhi, on a petition filed by Oriental Insurance Company seeking to set aside the tribunal’s order and fixed the matter for July 11.

The court directed the insurance company to deposit 50 per cent of the amount within four weeks to the tribunal and asked it to release 10 per cent of it to the victim’s family subject to security.

The court said the balance has to be deposited by way of a fixed deposit receipt.

The tribunal, in a landmark ruling last month, had directed the insurance company to pay the huge sum saying the compensation amount was arrived at by calculating the income of the deceased “who was earning crores of rupees from investments, rent, business of paper and exports”.

On the night of August 28, 2000, Goel was driving his family from Delhi towards Karnal via a non-lit section of the GT Karnal road when the car dashed against a Tata Sumo parked on the central verge of the highway without its indicators on.

Noting that the 39-year-old Goel’s annual income was over Rs 2 crore, out of which he spent about Rs 1.41 crore on his family, tribunal judge Girish Kathpalia had justified the compensation and said “the compensation must neither be a pittance nor a bonanza”.