CHENNAI: Left to deal with the aftermath of a hit-and-run accident a year ago, a young lawyer has moved the Madras High Court, seeking direction to authorities to install CCTV cameras at all important road junctions and accident prone zones to trace culprits in such cases where victims are not eligible to claim compensation.
When a writ plea from Sharath P Nair of Tiruverkadu came up before him, Justice PN Prakash issued notice to the authorities concerned, returnable in four weeks.
According to advocate VS Suresh, Sharath, a budding lawyer, was on his way from the Debts Recovery Tribunal on Anna Salai to Madras High Court when he met with an accident at Muthuswamy Road-Poonamallee High Road junction near Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital on August 11 last year.
A red colour omni van, which came in a rash and negligent manner, took an illegal U-turn and hit Sharath. Even as he fell down and sustained grievous injuries, the omni van sped away. Nobody noted down the registration number of the vehicle, including the petitioner, who was not in a position to do so in the impact. The CCTV cameras installed at the place were not functional.
Passersby rushed him to RGGGH, where he underwent a major surgery for Galeazzi fracture in his left hand. The doctors fixed six holed locking compression plates costing Rs 75,000. As per their advice he had to spend another Rs 50,000 to have the plates removed from his hand; it will take two more years to return to normalcy.
Meanwhile, as the police kept his bike in their custody for well over 50 days, he was forced to agree with an FIR with the report that ‘the accused could not be traced’ to get his vehicle released, he said in the petition.
Claiming compensation under the Government Accident Relief Fund, the only source of such victims to get some compensation, Sharath moved the concerned government authorities. Despite his repeated appearances before the Tahsildar and Chennai District Collector, he could not get the compensation under the scheme.
Following this, he moved the HC with the petition to issue directions to the two authorities to sanction the accident relief fund, and to install functional CCTV cameras to avoid recurrence of such incidents.