Bengaluru: In a case that is bound to have major ramifications, a city-based couple has been awarded a compensation of Rs 22 lakh by a Karnataka consumer court after they proved that the speed bump that took their 22-year-old son’s life around nine years ago was unauthorised and its design was unscientific.
The parents of Suryaprakash G Chavan had sued the Karnataka Urban Development Department, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and the Bengaluru City Police for negligence in allowing an ill-planned bump in the area that ultimately took their son’s life in 2008. The Karnataka Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has asked the three agencies to pay the compensation by the end of this month.
“Only I know how much I have suffered all these years. But no one else must suffer like this. This case is a role-model, it is historic for not just Bengaluru but other families of victims in India,” said G M Chavan, the aggrieved father. He said he hopes his case will set a precedent for others who have lost family members to bad roads.
The spot 100-feet road in BTM Layout in south Bengaluru where the accident took place. (Photo: News18)
Chavan’s fight had started nine years ago. Suryaprakash, his only son, was riding home from work on his motorcycle along the 100-feet road in BTM Layout in south Bengaluru in February 2008, when he met his death going over a badly-designed hump. The 22-year-old was thrown off the bike after he lost balance on driving over the speed bump that was not visible in the dark. His bike hit the central verge of the road and he fell on the road. He died before he could reach a hospital.
It had just been seven months since Suryaprakash had started off as an engineer at Microland, to what promised to be a great career. The elder Chavan, a Hindi teacher at a Kendriya Vidyalaya school, was a few years from retirement. The tragedy struck them emotionally, physically and financially.
“I have been doing this for nearly ten years now – collecting all information under RTI, filing cases in the Human Rights Commission. They took two years to order that officials must be punished, but I don’t know if any official was actually punished. So I decided to approach the consumer commission,” Chavan told News18.
The Chavans cited RTI replies from the police department and the engineering department of the civic body to prove that the design of the speed bump there was not scientific and it was unauthorised. Ever since his son died, Chavan has started a campaign to ensure unscientific humps are removed, blinker lights get installed and other reforms are brought in, he said.
His lawyer, N R Naik, says there is so far no indication of when these agencies are going to pay up, but they are waiting. “We had got replies from the police and the BBMP on record. We also had the norms on how road humps are to be built and this clearly did not meet specifications. Our sole argument was on ‘deficiency of service’ by the civic authorities. The service was not according to specifications,” Naik told News18.
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