GANGI MAGHARANI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AFTER discharging his duties as Cook with 213 Transit Camp Jammu, on November 27, 1990, Santa Lal Thapa was on his way home, along with his colleagues, on bicycles when at about 1700 hours he was hit by a RCC electric pole on his head near Green Belt area of Gandhi Nagar, Jammu, which had fallen, all of a sudden, when the officials of the State Electricity Board, Jammu, were in the process of its installation. The hit was so severe that Santa Lal Thapa died instantaneously.

(2.) HIS widow, two sons and daughter, filed this writ petition claiming an amount of Rs. 4,00,000/ - (Rupees Four Lac only) as compensation for the death of their bread winner.

(3.) OPPOSING the relief claimed by the petitioners, the State respondents, though admitting that the electric pole being installed by the staff of the respondents had fallen all of a sudden because of some defect in the manufacture thereof, pleaded that the deceased had entered the restricted zone, ignoring the warnings sounded by the men at work on spot where electric pole was being installed and in that view of the matter, the respondents were not negligent in discharging their duties. It had further been pleaded by the respondents that the writ petition had raised disputed questions of fact, which could not be gone into by the High Court. The respondents had denied their liability to pay compensation to the petitioners.