- (1.) The petitioners who are husband and wife have approached this Court through the present petition under Article 226 /227 of the Constitution of India seeking compensation of Rs. 10 lacs on account of death of their son namely Vikas Kumar, aged 7 years on account of electrocution which was as a result of negligence and carelessness of the respondents. A writ of mandamus has been sought for issuance of directions to the respondents to pay the aforesaid compensation. Brief facts as narrated in the petition may be noticed. There is an electric meter box installed in the street outside the gate of house of the petitioners. Many live wires are passing through the said electric meter box and some of the wires are naked. Due to heavy rains, the wires came down and touched the meter box resulting in current in the body of the box. Respondent Nos. 3 to 5 were informed about this situation a number of times. Many complaints were also given to the electricity Board but no action was taken. On 12.07.2009, Vikas Kumar son of the petitioners while playing in the street touched the meter box and he died of electrocution on the spot. According to the petitioners, no indication of "danger" has been mentioned on the meter box. Body. The petitioners alongwith other residents of the locality went to the Police Station and got recorded DDR No. 22 dated 12.07.2009. The petitioners also approached respondent Nos. 3 to 5 regarding the said incident who promised them appropriate compensation from the Board. After some time they got some blank paper signed from petitioner No. 1. The petitioners came to know that the blank paper was later on converted into a compromise resulting thereby that no compensation will be given to the petitioners as the matter had been compromised. Postmortem was conducted on 13.07.2009 in which it was mentioned that the cause of death was electric burn injuries. The petitioners sent a legal notice dated 10.08.2009 but no action was taken. Having received no response from the respondents, the petitioners filed the present writ petition.
(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the respondents were negligent in installing the electric connection lines near the house of the petitioners and referred to photograph Annexure P-1 to substantiate the aforesaid claim. On the basis of Annexure P-2 postmortem report, it was contended that the death had taken place due to electric current. It was argued that it was due to the negligence and carelessness of the respondents in putting the electric lines which resulted in the death of their son. On the strength of judgments in S. Dhanaveni and others v. State of T.N. and others, 1997 AIR(Mad) 257, Dano Bai v. Punjab State, 1997 115 PunLR 414, Ramesh Singh Pawar v. MP. Electricity Board and others, 2005 AIR(MP) 2 and M.P. Electricity Board v. Smt. Sunder Bai and others, 2006 AIR(MP) 137, it was urged that compensation be awarded to the petitioners as claimed by them in the petition.
(3.) Controverting the aforesaid submissions, learned counsel for the respondents submitted that the writ jurisdiction of this Court has been erroneously invoked for claiming compensation. According to the learned counsel, the dispute required to be resolved by leading evidence for which civil suit was the only remedy. Elaborating his submissions on merits, he referred to photographs Annexure R. 1 to R. 3 to show that the box wherein the meter was installed was locked and there was no negligence on the part of the respondents. Further, reference was made to Para 11 of the written statement where the claim of the petitioners that the death had taken place due to the negligence of the respondents was emphatically denied and it was stated that either the son of the petitioners died in his own house or in order to get undue benefit, they concocted a story of electrocution at pillar box. Relying upon the judgments of the Apex Court in Chairman, Grid Corporation of Orissa Limited (Gridco) and others v. Smt. Sukamani Das and another, 1999 7 SCC 298 and SDO Grid Corporation of Orissa Limited and others v. Timudu Oram, 2005 6 SCC 156 (SDO Grid Corporation's case), the claim of the petitioners was refuted.;