Court No. - 3
Case :- FIRST APPEAL FROM ORDER No. - 696 of 2006 Appellant :- Nand Lal Lodhi & Another Respondent :- Harjeet Singh & Another Counsel for Appellant :- Ram Singh
Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J. Hon'ble Rajiv Joshi,J.
Heard Sri Ram Singh, learned counsel for the appellant and Sri Nagendra Kumar Srivastava, learned counsel appearing for respondent No.2-insurance company. The respondent No.1 is a formal party and has not appeared to contest the appeal.
The claimant-appellants have preferred this appeal for enhancement of the compensation against the award dated 10.11.2005 passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal whereby a sum of Rs.1,64,500/- only has been awarded with 6% interest from the date of judgment till the payment of compensation.
One Suresh Kumar died in an accident on 27.1.2004 with a truck. The vehicle was insured with the respondent-insurance company. The deceased at the time of accident was a bachelor and aged about 24 years. His parents preferred claim petition wherein the above compensation has been awarded by holding the income of the deceased to be Rs.4000/- p.m., after applying 2/3rd deduction towards personal expenses and the multiplier of 10 on the basis of age of the parents of the deceased but with no compensation for future prospects of the deceased.
The submission of Sri Ram Singh, learned counsel for the claimant-appellants is that the deceased was doing cloth business in Mumbai and at times he used to visit his village do cultivation work and, as such, his total earning was not less than Rs.8000/- p.m.
The Tribunal while assessing the monthly income of the deceased took all the facts relevant to his earnings i.e. earning from cloth business at Mumbai and at village by cultivation as well as his L.I.C. Policy and investments in Kisan Vikas Patra and came to the conclusion that there is no evidence to establish the income of the deceased but the income of Rs.4000/- p.m. can be taken on the safer side in the attending facts and circumstances.
We do not find any error on the part of the Tribunal in assessing the income of the deceased at the rate of Rs.4000/- p.m.
The Tribunal has deducted 2/3rd of the income towards personal expenses of the deceased to work out the dependency of the claimant- appellants 1/3rd only.
Since the deceased was a bachelor, in the normal course the he would have been spending half of the income upon himself and dependency of the claimant-appellant would have been on the other half of the income of the deceased.
In this view of the matter deduction of only ½ of the income of the deceased would have been sufficient for the purposes of working out the dependency of the claimant-appellants. The Tribunal, therefore, fell in error in deducting 2/3rd of the income for his personal expenses.
The Tribunal after assessing the income and applying deduction towards personal expenses, applied the multiplier of 10 on the basis of the age of the parents of the deceased.
It is well settled that the multiplier has to be applied according to the age of the deceased. The deceased was a bachelor aged about 22 years and, therefore, according to case of Sarla Varma and another Vs. Delhi Transport Corporation and others AIR 2009 SC 3104 the multiplier of 18 is applicable.
In addition to the above, the Tribunal has not given any credit for future prospects of the deceased. According to the age group of the deceased i.e. below 30 years, 40% of the income is liable to be added in the basic salary/income of the deceased towards future prospects. Since the Tribunal has not added or awarded any amount for the purposes of future prospectus, we direct that 40% of the income of the deceased be added to his income for future prospectus while determining the compensation.
Rule 220-A(4) of the Rules provides for non-pecuniary damages for the loss of estate, medical expenses and funeral expenses. Thus, without going into the merits of each of those amounts as a very meagre amount of Rs.2000/- for funeral and Rs.2,500/- for loss of estate has been awarded, we grant Rs.5,000/- towards funeral expenses and Rs.15,000/- for the loss of estate i.e. total Rs.20,000/- under the aforesaid heads.
In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances, the total compensation payable to the claimant-appellants shall be as under:
Accordingly, the compensation awarded by the Tribunal to the tune of Rs.1,65,500/- is enhanced to Rs.8,94,000/- with simple interest at the rate of 6% per annum from the date of filing of the claim petition till its payment. The impugned award stands modified accordingly.
The amount already deposited and paid by the respondent shall be adjusted.
The appeal is allowed.
Order Date :- 26.4.2018 Brijesh