A trial court ordered a man to pay his wife Rs 2,500 as maintenance while divorce proceedings were pending. The woman appealed to the Madras High Court contending that the amount was not enough. The high court increased the maintenance payable to Rs 25,000. It pointed out that according to the documents produced in the court below, the husband had property worth Rs 20 crore. So, his wife must have had a high standard of living. The court pointed out that Rs 2,500 was too meagre an amount to maintain the lifestyle the woman was used to, especially since she also had to pay for the MBA course she had just enrolled in. The court also held that the financial status of a woman’s parents should not be taken into account while awarding maintenance (D. Nirmala Devi vs V.M. Dhanasekharan).
A man died when the car he was travelling in crashed into a bus. The transport corporation which owned the bus refused to pay compensation because it claimed that the accident had happened because of the car, which had overtaken a tempo from the wrong side, lost control and hit the bus. The Allahabad High Court ruled that when the negligence of more than one driver leads to a death, the victim can seek compensation from any or all of them, without going to the trouble of finding out who was actually responsible. The tribunal would decide the compensation amount and apportion it among the vehicles involved, taking into account relevant factors (UP State Transport Corporation vs Mrs Rajani Garg and others).
A boy who had gone to check his exam result from the school died when the school’s boundary wall collapsed on him. The school was a public school and the wall that collapsed had been built by the state public works department (PWD). So, holding the state indirectly responsible for the death, the Orissa High Court directed the government to pay the boy’s family Rs 1.5 lakh as compensation, along with six per cent interest per annum (G. Gouri Sankara vs State of Orissa and others).
SOLON
