'Homemakers are nation builders': For payout, SC pegs housewife ‘income’ at Rs 30,000 a month

Calling housewives “nation builders”, Supreme Court for the first time said in case of a homemaker’s death in an accident, the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal will calculate the compensation to be paid to her family by assuming her monthly income to be at least Rs 30,000.

Pained by the 25-year delay, 22 of which were because the matter remained pending in Punjab and Haryana HC, in grant of compensation to the family of a homemaker who died in an accident on Nov 25, 2001, SC said the economy and stability of a house was wholly dependent on the woman and enhanced compensation from Rs 8.4 lakh to Rs 63 lakh, with interest of 7.5% from 2001.

Homemakers nation builders,must be recognised as such: SC

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N K Singh said women were largely responsible for the preparation of human capital on which the dreams of being the world’s largest economy, among other things, rested.

The bench said if the compensation was not paid within three months, the interest rate would increase to 9%, and six months later, it would go up to 12% per annum. It also listed 123 accident compensation claim cases, which were dealt with by a bench led by Justice Karol, and said these remained pending for an average eight years in HCs. It requested the chief justices concerned to give primacy to long-pending cases for early disposal.

Writing the judgment, Justice Karol said, “It is high time that the invisible is made visible or the veil is pierced to make what can be partially seen come out in the open. ‘Homemakers’, to put it directly, actually are the ‘nation builders’, and they ought to be recognised as such.”

Defining the heads for computing accidental death compensation under a new judicially devised formula, ‘loss of domestic care’, the bench said the first of them refers to the loss of the homemaker’s ability to manage all chores of the household; the second pertained to children who lose their mother, and third, the husband loses his life partner who helped run the house smoothly.

Scoffing at the gender stereotype approach in computing compensation by assuming the notional income of a homemaker to be Rs 3,000 per month, the Supreme Court bench said, “It is ironic to describe a homemaker as dependent on earning members when, in reality, the household’s functioning depends substantially on the homemaker. The earning members are, in fact, solely dependent on the homemaker, but alas, this reality does not receive the acknowledgment.”

When the woman cooks, cleans and does other household chores to support the paid workforce whose efforts sustain economic activities and productivity, how could these women be considered to have no income, the bench wondered.

“Women’s unpaid caregiving work is estimated to contribute 15-17% to India’s GDP, yet it remains unpaid and unrecognised. To put the enormity of what is missed out by these conventional methods, it may be noted that every day, around 16 billion individual hours are devoted to unpaid domestic work and care,” the SC said.



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