PUDUCHERRY: A State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) bus was seized based on an attachment order by the court here on Tuesday for delaying compensation to an accident victim. Third additional district magistrate E M K S Siddhartha issued an executive petition (EP) to this effect. The attachment comes on the heels of a seizure of an SETC bus in the Union Territory on December 16.
Court attachment of SETC buses has become a new trend with the transport corporation circumventing the law and delaying compensation for accident victims. In fact, the third additional magistrate issued three EPs in the last four months.
“Earlier, it was not possible for advocates to seize the vehicles if payment to the victims was delayed, as the SETC office was based in Chennai. Also, while other establishments like the Pondicherry Road Transport Corporation had their buses insured, which made it easy for getting the compensation, Tamil Nadu SETC doesn’t have any. Using these factors to their advantage, the SETC had been delaying payment in several accident cases,” explained Puducherry advocate V Annamalai.
In the current case, the third ADM issued an EP for bus attachment after the SETC failed to pay compensation of `6 lakh for the death of Uma, who was killed while travelling in an SETC bus in 2001. The court had then held that `4 lakh be awarded as compensation to her kin. After the SETC failed to pay up, Uma’s husband, J V S Selvaraj, petitioned the court, which increased it to `6 lakh in 2008.
However, with further delay in payment, an order was issued for the attachment of the bus with the Puducherry court until the compensation was paid.
“It seems like now a bus has to be attached even to get a petty sum of `10,000 as compensation,” quipped Annamalai, referring to his case where the SETC delayed payment over a judgment passed in 2006.
However, Uma’s family can’t breathe a sigh of relief as yet. According to an advocate, the SETC could extricate itself by filing an application promising payment of the amount, request release of the bus and repeat the same process again or pay half the amount to retrieve the bus for the time being.