IMPORTANT POINT
Maintainability of claim petition – parents in law on the death of daughter in law can be claimants in claim petition when the claimants’ son had also died in the accident.

K. Kannan, J.—The Insurance Company is in appeal on the issue of quantum on the ground that the claim by the parents-in-law for of the death of daughter-in-law is not maintainable. The claimants’ son had also died in the accident which had been subject of an independent claim.

2. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the parents-in- law could not be said to be dependents on the deceased and, therefore, the petition itself is not maintainable. It must be noticed that under Section 15 of the Hindu Succession Act, in the absence of children and husband, on the death of a female heirs of the husband shall be the legal heirs. The father and mother are the heirs of the husband and, therefore, they shall be taken as legal heirs. The maintainability of the petition cannot therefore be doubted.

3. The extent of dependence may probably vary and it may not normally happen that the parents-in-law could be stated to be dependents on the daughter-in-law. However, it ought to make a difference in a case where the son of the claimants has also died. In an ordinary Indian social setting, a daughter-in-law moves into the family of her husband and takes care of the household. In this case, the deceased was a householder. We have come by a gradual acknowledgment of gender equality as a constitutional scheme and the increasing recognition of the value of contribution of womanhood to the sum of economic prosperity and social felicity. Housewives have obtained a new moniker as homemakers. In Arun Kumar Agarwal &Anr v. National Insurance Company & Ors., Appeal No. 5843 of 2010 decided on 26.7.2010: 2010 RAJ 262 the Supreme Court was dealing with the case of death of a woman in a road accident and sounded on the global approaches in the matter of an assessment of contribution of a householder to the family.

4. The Bench spoke through two independent judgments voicing similar concerns. Mr. Justice A.K. Ganguly referred to a judgment of a Division Bench of Madras High Court in Nalional Insurance Company v. Minor Deepika, Civil Miscellaneous Appeal No. 3049 of 2007 decided on 27.4.2009: 2009(6) MLJ 1005 that quoted several international conventions and the need for appropriately assessing the value of the homemakers’ services. The Division Bench of the Madras High Court, speaking through Ms. Justice Prabha Sridevan, underscored the contribution of a householder in the following words:-

“…that there have been efforts to understand the value of a homemaker’s unpaid labour by different methods. One is, the opportunity cost which evaluates her wages by assessing what she would have earned had she not remained at home, viz., the opportunity lost. The second is, the partnership method which assumes that a marriage is an equal economic partnership and in this method, the homemaker’s salary is valued at half her husband’s salary. Yet another method is to evaluate homemaking by determining how much it would cost to replace the homemaker with paid workers. This is called the Replacement Method.”

The role of a housewife includes managing budgets, coordinating activities, balancing accounts, helping children with education, managing help at home, nursing care etc. One formula that has been arrived at determines the value of the housewife as Value of housewife = husband’s income-wife’s income + value of husband’s household services. which means the wife’s value will increase inversely proportionate the extent of participation by the husband in the household duties. The Australian family Property Law provides that while distributing properties in matrimonial matters, for instance, one has to factor in the contribution made by a party to the marriage to the welfare of the family constituted by the parties to the marriage and any children of the marriage including any contribution made in the capacity of a homemaker or parent.

The Supreme Court approved of the observation in paragraph 13 of the Division Bench in Deepika “that t