Pawan Kumar Gupta Vs. Union of India (Uoi) and ors.

- motor vehicles act, 1988 [c.a. no. 59/1988]section 168; [s.b. sinha & h.s. bedi, jj ] determination of compensation meaning of income of victim held, the term income has different connotations for different purposes. a court of law, having regard to the change in societal conditions must consider the question not only having regard to pay packet the employee carries home at the end of the month but also other perks which are beneficial to the members of the entire family. loss caused to the family on a death of a near and dear one can hardly be compensated on monetary terms. section 168 uses the word just compensation which, in our opinion, should be assigned a broad meaning. it cannot be lost sight of the fact that the private sector companies in place of introducing a pension scheme takes recourse to payment of contributory provident fund, gratuity and other perks to attract the people who are efficient and hard working. different offers made to an officer by the employer, same may be either for the benefit of the employee himself or for the benefit of the entire family if some facilities are being provided whereby the entire family stands to benefit, the same, must be held to be relevant for the purpose of computation of total income on the basis whereof the amount of compensation payable for the death of the kith and kin of the applicants is required to be determined. the amounts, therefore, which were required to be paid to the deceased by his employer by way of perks, should be included for computation of his monthly income as that would have been added to his monthly income by way of contribution to the family as contradistinguished to the ones which were for his benefit. from the said amount of income, the statutory amount of tax payable thereupon must be deducted......any absolute proposition in law that a person challenging a detention order under the n.s.a or cofeposa must in all cases surrender before he can file a petition. in our country articlecle 21 of the constitution guarantees the right to life and liberty and this is the most important of all fundamental rights provided in the constitution. hence, individual liberty is not to be lightly interfered with and hence, there cannot be any absolute proposition that a detention order can never be challenged without first surrendering before the authorities. it all depends on the facts of each case and no absolute proposition can be laid down in this connection.6. learned counsel for the respondents then submitted that a person sought to be detained has no right to get a copy of the grounds of detention before his arrest and detention. since we have already observed that there cannot be any absolute legal proposition that a detention order can never be challenged without first surrendering before the authorities it follows as a corollary that the ground for detention can be communicated by annexing the same in the counter affidavit to be filed by the government in such cases. since copy of the counter affidavit will be served on the learned counsel for the petitioner this itself will tantamount to communication of the grounds to the detenu because the learned counsel for the petitioner can communicate these grounds annexed to the counter affidavit, to the petitioner.7. on the facts and circumstances of the case we direct that till the next date of listing the petitioner shall not be arrested in pursuance of the impugned detention order dated 16-2-2001.