New Delhi, July 20: A high court has asked Air India to double to Rs 75 lakh the compensation for the parents of a young passenger who died in last year’s Mangalore plane crash, invoking the Montreal Convention for the first time to introduce parity and award the largest such amount in the country.
Kerala High Court order is expected to cover the families of all 158 passengers who died in the Air India Express crash on 22 May, 2010, while the flight was on its way back from Dubai.
Almost a year earlier on June 30, 2009, the Montreal Convention, which lays down compensation standards on international routes, had taken effect in India.
The parents of 24-year-old B. Mohammad Rafi, a salesman killed in the crash, were offered Rs 35 lakh as compensation, after taking into account his monthly salary that was equivalent to Rs 25,000. The amount was apparently arrived at by the airline’s insurer in consultation with legal officials.
The convention allows calculations based on age and income but it has also set a minimum amount of 100,000 SDR (special drawing rights), the International Monetary Fund currency that translates into Rs 70.9 lakh on the basis of the exchange rate on Wednesday. The court’s calculation of Rs 75 lakh could be based on the exchange rate that prevailed on the day of the crash a year ago.
However, Rafi’s north Kerala-based parents, Abdul Salam and Ramla, approached the court with a compensation plea for Rs 1.5 crore. The Union government and National Aviation Company (the corporate entity which owns Air India) were the respondents in the case.
The court has now fixed the amount at 100,000 SDR, the minimum amount under the Montreal guideline but more than double the amount initially offered to the couple. The compensation awarded now is over and above the grants announced by other agencies.
Noting that India was a signatory to the Montreal Convention, the court said: “It is clear that the intention of lawmakers was to bring about a parity in the matter of payment of compensation to the passengers, irrespective of class of travel, while providing for a ‘two-tier system’ of compensation as adopted in Montreal Convention.”
If the court order is unchallenged — the government has accepted the order as of now — and sets a precedent, it will mean that high compensation could be given irrespective of the class of travel.
In the “first limb” of compensation, the intent was to provide the “minimum compensation” payable in respect of death or bodily injuries, subject to the satisfaction of extent of damage, the court said.
“Since the extent of damage to any injury cannot be anything more than death”, no further proof is necessary to sanction the minimum compensation of “1 lakh SDR” in the case of death, the court said.
The court said it was of the “firm belief” that Rafi, who lost his life like several others, was not liable to be discriminated by the respondents, restricting the compensation with reference to his age, income or the dependency of the members of the family.
About Rs 20 lakh has been paid to the petitioners and the rest should be paid in a month, the court added.
The civil aviation ministry welcomed the court decision. In a statement, Vayalar Ravi, the civil aviation minister who also hails from Kerala, said the national carrier had been directed to ensure that insurance companies settled the payments expeditiously.
“This is the highest amount of compensation granted to air crash victims in India,” said R.N. Pathak, an aviation expert. Some sources said a few individuals may have received a higher compensation but as a group, this might be the highest.
According to Air India sources, the national carrier has already paid Rs 57 crore as compensation to families of the victims of the crash. Soon after the accident, the civil aviation ministry had announced Rs 10 lakh as interim compensation.
