Rajkot: Eight years after a 34-year-old farmer got electrocuted on his farm, a court here ordered Paschim Gujarat Vij Company Ltd (PGVC) to pay his family compensation of Rs 58.77 lakh.The civil court in Jasdan town directed the state-run discom to pay the sum with 9% simple interest to the family of Hitesh Ramani, who died after coming in contact with a live wire while watering his field in Lilapur village on March 19, 2018.When Ramani didn’t return home, his brother went searching and found his burned body next to a dish cable wire. A postmortem confirmed that he died from cardiorespiratory arrest due to a high-voltage electric shock.After his death, his mother filed a compensation suit seeking Rs 70 lakh from PGCVL and local cable operators. Ramani’s father is paralysed and he has three children. The family were already reeling from Ramani’s wife’s death just months before the accident. Ramani was the only breadwinner of the family, they submitted in the suit.In court, PGVCL argued that they were not negligent, stating that their 11KV wire did not break. Instead, they blamed local cable network operators, alleging that an unauthorized dish cable was tied to the electricity poles, which caused the electrocution.The court rejected this argument. “Principal senior civil judge K N Dave ruled that, under legal principles, the primary responsibility to maintain potentially hazardous electric lines safely lies with the electricity supplier,” said advocate P R Desai. He added, “The court, in its order dated Jan 22, noted that PGVCL failed to produce documentary evidence showing that they properly maintained the 11KV line at the incident site or took necessary precautions to prevent unauthorized cables from interfering with their high-voltage wires. Consequently, the court held PGVCL entirely liable for the electrocution, determining that a normal cable wire would not carry enough current to kill a person without PGVCL’s negligence.“The final compensation of Rs 58.77 lakh was computed based on the Ramani’s income tax returns and dairy sales. The award includes Rs 56,01,624 for loss of income, Rs 18,000 for funeral expenses, Rs 18,000 for loss of estate and Rs 2.4 lakh as a conventional amount for loss of love and affection. PGVCL was ordered to pay the sum with interest calculated from the date the suit was originally filed until the money is fully paid.
