SURREY – A BC Supreme Court judge has awarded more than $600,000 to the daughter of murdered Surrey teacher Manjit Panghali but the young child will have to fight to get it from her estranged father, who is serving a life sentence for killing her mother.
Manjitwas killed by her husband Mukhtiar Panghali in 2006. The burned remains of the 31-year-old, who was four months pregnant, were found on a beach in Delta five days after she was reported missing. He’s now serving a sentence of life without parole for 15 years after being convicted of second degree murder, reported CBC News.
Although the court has made the award, collecting the money is another matter.
Mukhtiar Panghali’s brothers have made a financial claim against those properties, and the matter will be the subject of a trial set for November 2014.
The lawsuit was initiated by his 10-year-old daughter Maya Panghali’s guardians Jasmine Kaur Bhambra and Tarminderpal Singh Basra, Manjit’s sister and brother-in-law, who have had sole custody of the little girl since 2007.
They initiated the legal action to assist in her care, and provide an inheritance from their mother’s estate.
In reaching his decision, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Punnett was forced to imagine a world where Manjit Panghali was not murdered — where the pregnant school teacher, instead, took maternity leave before returning to work as an elementary school teacher, and then watched as her bright, thriving daughter Maya went on to study at university.
These were some of the criteria Punnett used to calculate losses, past and present, for financial support and childcare — an amount he finally set at more than $600,000.
Factored into the calculations was an assumption that had the crime not happened, Mukhtiar the father, would have continued working as a high school teacher.
Punnett ordered Mukhtiar Panghali to pay the plaintiffs $614,300, for past and future loss of dependency, past and future loss of household assistance and childcare, loss of guidance, public guardian and trustee fees, interest, court and other costs.
Punnett noted the Family Compensation Act “is not punitive in nature. It is only meant to provide financial recompense for pecuniary losses flowing from the death itself, rather than providing a sanction for the wrongdoer’s role in the death.”
Nevertheless, he remarked that “it is difficult to envision more reprehensible conduct” than Panghali’s crimes.
“The child has lost the care, love and support of her mother who would have provided guidance throughout her youth into young adulthood.”
At the time of Pangali’s murder, she and her husband had $264,000 worth of equity in a Surrey home and owned a second property worth approximately $266,000.
