MUMBAI, May 10 -- Thirty-two years after a Dubai-based businesswoman died in a road crash near Bhiwandi while traveling to Shirdi, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday held that her family was entitled to compensation of Rs.10 crore, as against the compensation of Rs.5.52 crore awarded by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), Mumbai. A division bench of Justice R I Chagla and Justice Advait Sethna also held the family entitled to 9% annual interest on the compensation amount, starting from December 1994, when they filed the accident claim. "We direct that 9% interest per annum be paid from the date of the claim application, i.e. December 23, 1994, made before the MACT by the respondents (original claimants)," said the bench. The order was passed on an appeal filed by the Oriental Insurance Company and a cross-claim filed by the family of the deceased, Kavita Sawlani. The accident took place on July 3, 1994, when Sawlani was travelling by a four-wheeler from Mumbai to Shirdi along with her minor daughter Pooja, sister-in-law Kanchan Melwani and niece Rinku. The deceased and her sister were severely injured after a head-on collision of the four-wheeler and a truck near Wadape village near Bhiwandi and both of them later succumbed to their injuries. Sawlani's husband and minor children approached the MACT, Mumbai seeking compensation from the four-wheeler owner and her insurer, Oriental Insurance Company. On June 23, 2003, the Tribunal granted compensation of Rs.5.52 crore to the family members. The insurance company challenged the order, contending that the Tribunal erred in awarding the huge compensation amount because there was no evidence to support the family's claim that the deceased earned 1 million dirham (around Rs.70 lakh then) annually at the time of the accident. The company further claimed that three different versions existed regarding the deceased's occupation. It also claimed that the documents her family produced were seriously questionable and appeared fabricated to inflate the income of the deceased. The high court, however, discarded the claims and held that the woman's income was duly proven to be around Rs.70 lakh per annum based on 1994 rates. The high court also found fault with computation of amounts payable to the family of the deceased towards funeral expenses, loss of estate and loss of consortium - with specific hikes every three years, as laid down by the Supreme Court in number of judgements, and remanded the matter back to the Tribunal for fresh computation. The court directed the MACT to recompute the compensation based on the court's directions within six weeks. It then ordered the insurance company to pay the amounts to the family four weeks after that, along with 9% interest per annum starting from December 1994, when the claim petition was filed before the Tribunal....