Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, Section 166

Motor Vehicles Act, 1988—Section 166—Accident—Compensation—Computation of loss of future earning—Held, in the context of loss of future earning, any physical disability resulting from an accident has to be judged with reference to the nature of work being performed by the person suffering the disability—This is the basic premise and once that is grasped, it clearly follows that the same injury or loss may affect two different persons in different ways—Take the case of a marginal farmer who does his cultivation work himself and ploughs his land with his own two hands; or the puller of a cycle-rickshaw, one of the main means of transport in hundreds of small towns all over the country—The loss of one of the legs either to the marginal farmer or the cycle-rickshaw-puller would be the end of the road insofar as their earning capacity is concerned—But in case of a person engaged in some kind of desk work in an office, the loss of a leg may not have the same effect—The loss of a leg (or for that matter the loss of any limb) to anyone is bound to have very traumatic effects on one’s personal, family or social life but the loss of one of the legs to a person working in the office would not interfere with his work/earning capacity in the same degree as in the case of a marginal farmer or a cycle-rickshaw-puller.