MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently ordered the Dindigul division of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to a woman, whose husband and son died due to electrocution in Kodaikanal in 2018.
Justice V Lakshminarayan passed the order on a petition filed in 2022 by the woman, R Subbulakshmi. According to the order, on December 2, 2018, the petitioner’s son Raja Pandi got electrocuted when he went to dry a towel on a clothesline at their house, unaware that a live electric wire had fallen on it. Her husband, Ravi, in an attempt to save his son, also met the same fate.
Subbulakshmi claimed that for 10 days prior to the incident, there had been no power supply to her house owing to Gaja cyclone. Authorities had restored the connection without checking whether the electric lines were intact, she alleged. Saying that she had lost her husband and only son due to the negligence of the authorities, she sought compensation.
Pointing out a Tangedco scheme providing Rs 5 lakh solatium to the family of electrocution victims, the judge ordered the superintending engineer (Dindigul) to pay Rs 10 lakh.