Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 24: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has dismissed an intra-court appeal filed by the Union Territory administration and Power Development Department authorities and upheld the award of Rs 16,53,652 compensation with 6% simple interest in favour of the widow and minor son of a Traffic Police constable who died due to electrocution by a high-tension live wire near TCP Nagrota in December 2003.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Arun Palli and Justice Rajnesh Oswal first condoned 201 days’ delay in filing the appeal and thereafter dismissed LPA No. 57/2025 arising out of OWP No. 772/2004 (Gulshan Ara & Another Versus State of J&K and Ors), holding that no illegality or perversity was made out in the Writ Court judgment dated 02.04.2024.
As per the record, Liaqat Ali, a Selection Grade Constable with Traffic Police, came into contact with a live electric wire lying on a public way at around 5 am on 03.12.2003, suffered severe burn injuries and was declared dead at GMC Jammu; the post-mortem attributed the cause of death to “shock as a result of electrocution by high-tension live wire.”
The family’s case was supported by FIR No. 189/2003 (PS Nagrota) and charge-sheet No. 35/2004 under Section 304-A RPC against the officials concerned, alleging negligence in maintenance of the electric line.
The appellants-State (now UT) of J&K, Chief Engineer PDD, Divisional Engineer Electricity Department and DGP-through Raman Sharma, Sr Advocate (AAG), assisted by Jagmeet Kour, argued that the writ petition involved disputed facts and the claim should have gone to a civil court, besides contending that under Government Order No. 723-GR (GAD) of 1990, the dependents were entitled only to Rs 5 lakh ex-gratia.
Rejecting the objections, the Bench held that mere existence of disputed questions of fact is not an absolute bar to writ jurisdiction when the dispute can be decided from the record.
It further noted that no such ex-gratia order was placed on record, the plea was not raised before the Writ Court, and in any case, the right to compensation for negligence cannot be extinguished merely due to an ex-gratia policy, particularly when there was nothing to show any ex-gratia amount was ever paid.
Upholding the Writ Court’s computation on settled principles (including reliance on leading Supreme Court precedents), the Bench dismissed the appeal as misconceived.
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