26/11 Mumbai attacks: Paralysed British citizen becomes first to win compensation claim

Seven years after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, a British citizen who sued the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel for not doing enough to protect its guests has received undisclosed sum in compensation, reports a leading daily. This is the first compensation claim settled by the private company with regards to the tragedy.

Will Pike was paralysed after he fell 50 feet and broke his back and pelvis while trying to escape from the fire the terrorists had started in the Taj hotel. Pike, an advertising copywriter was staying with his girlfriend Kelly Doyle at the hotel. But after the smoke started filling the room, he and his girlfriend tried to escape by by making ropes out of bedsheets and curtains to lower down from the window. However Pike fell 50 feet as the bedsheets and curtains did not hold his weight injuring his back and pelvis and paralysing him.

Pike approached Taj group for compensation but the two couldn't reach an agreement. He then filed a case in a London Court saying that the hotel did not react to a terror alert and endangered the lives of its employees and guests.

The Taj group challenged the London court's jurisdiction to try but the London High Court in  2013 ruled saying that the trial in Pike's case would take 20 years, it should be heard in the UK.  "The High Court rejected the Indian Hotel Company's argument that the English Courts did not have jurisdiction to try the claim," David Standard, media relations manager of the law firm representing Pike said Leigh Day solicitor.

The lawyers also said that since Taj group had good presence in the UK, the case can be heard there. They said that fighting the case in India "would be an exercise in futility". The law firm has not revealed the compensation figure. 

Indian Hotels Company Ltd, the Tata Group firm that owns Taj Mahal Palace Hotel has expressed disappointment over the London High Court's decision. "The acceptance of jurisdiction by the English court was made without any detailed consideration of the merits of the claim; it was a purely procedural decision. This tragedy in which many staff and guests were killed or injured was not the fault of the hotel owners," the Taj group had said.