Court dismisses UT’s appeal

Aneesha Sareen

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 29

Dismissing an appeal of the UT Administration, the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Nazar Singh today upheld the order of the lower court directing the UT Electricity Department to pay Rs 3.65 lakh compensation to the family of a 17-year-old boy who died due to electrocution in 2006.

On August 27, 2013, the court of the JMIC had directed the UT Administration to pay Rs 3.65 lakh to the parents of a Class XII student, Lalit Ram, a resident of Sector 46. In the petition, Lalit’s father Ram Kumar had said that he and his son were on their way to Sector 45 on December 10, 2006, when Lalit, while trying to avoid slipping on the wet road, took support of an electricity pole and died of a power shock. Lalit Ram had died on the spot.

The UT Administration had filed an appeal against the order of the lower court, which was dismissed today.

With the appeal dismissed, the court directed the Secretary, Electricity, and Operations Sub-division 6 to pay 9 per cent interest on the compensation amount from April 2007, when the case was filed.

The petitioner had sought compensation alleging that the UT Electricity Department had wrongly erected an electricity pole for providing electricity supply to a liquor vend in Sector 46.

Contesting the petition for compensation, the department had denied any liability, saying that according to the clauses of providing connections, the liability was of the consumer, which was the liquor vend in this case. However, the contention was not accepted in the appeal.

Lalit Ram, alias Vinod (17), a resident of Sector 46, was electrocuted on December 10, 2006. 

Fighting legal battle for over eight years: Father  

Ram Kumar, father of the deceased, who felt relieved after the appeal of the UT was dismissed, said they had been fighting a legal battle for compensation ever since the death of their son in 2006 and had not received a single penny so far. “We hope to get relief now,” he said. The deceased, Lalit Ram, was their only son.