Historic decision of the Supreme Court! Now the price of housewives’ work is ₹ 30,000 per month, opponents stop speaking

The country’s highest court i.e. the Supreme Court has given a very historic and big order in favor of women. The Supreme Court, in one of its decisions, has asked the price of work of housewives to be at least Rs 30 thousand per month. In fact, earlier if a housewife died in a road accident, the compensation given to her family in motor accident claims was calculated considering the housewife’s monthly income as zero. But now this thinking and rule has been completely changed. Now, if a housewife dies tragically in a road accident, the compensation to her family will have to be calculated based on the housewife’s monthly income of Rs 30,000.

This historic decision has come during the hearing of a case related to a road accident in Punjab. In November 2001, a woman named Reshma died in a road accident. After this, her husband and three children appealed for compensation in the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal. Although the tribunal had given its verdict in the year 2003 itself, this legal case continued for a long time in different courts. Finally, in the year 2024, the Punjab and Haryana High Court gave its final decision on this. This means that it took a long time of more than 20 years for the victim’s family to get true justice.

Housewives’ work cannot be measured by normal wages

Honorable Supreme Court Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N. Kotishwar Singh’s bench completely rejected the conservative and outdated thinking in which the estimated income of housewives was compared with the wages of a skilled labourer. The Supreme Court said very poignantly and logically that managing the entire household, providing good upbringing and care to the children and taking care of the small and big needs of the entire family round the clock is such a great job, the real social and economic value of which can never be measured by the scale of normal wages.

Along with this, the court made a very beautiful comment and said that the word “housewife” in the society should now get a bigger status of “nation builder”, because their selfless contribution is very important for the development of our society and the entire country.

New historical principle of monthly valuation of Rs 30,000

Delivering his final verdict in this case, Justice Karol said that the court has now set a new legal principle. Under this, the loss of domestic care and work will now be assessed on the basis of at least Rs 30,000 per month. The most important thing is that this fixed amount will be in addition to all other legal compensation provisions.

This new system will be applicable across the country in conjunction with the Supreme Court’s famous historic decision ‘National Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Pranay Sethi’ already implemented for determining compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act.

The Supreme Court of the country has already recognized the strength of women.

Well, this is not the first time that the court has said such a thing in favor of women. The Supreme Court has already clearly said in many different cases that the unpaid domestic work of housewives cannot be underestimated under any circumstances. The court once again reiterated that a woman’s day and night contribution cannot be ignored or dismissed just because she does not get any monthly salary in return for this heavy work.

The court expressed deep concern over the long delay in compensation cases.

During the hearing of this case, the Supreme Court also expressed great concern over the decades-long legal delays in road accident compensation cases. The court said in a very strong tone that when the victim’s families have to go to court and wait for decades even to get minor relief, then the real welfare objective of the Motor Vehicles Act is completely defeated.

For this reason, the court has made a special request to the Chief Justices of all the High Courts of the country to closely monitor such compensation cases themselves and make every possible effort to ensure that the compensation claims related to the accident are settled within a maximum of one year.