FAO No.1178 of 1998 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH FAO No.1178 of 1998 DATE OF DECISION: December 15, 2010 MRS. KULWANT KAUR AND OTHERS ...APPELLANTS VERSUS SHRI SARABJIT SINGH AND OTHERS ...RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN. 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgement should be reported in the digest? ---- PRESENT: MS. EKTA THAKUR, ADVOCATE FOR THE APPELLANTS. MR. PAUL S. SAINI, ADVOCATE FOR RESPONDENTS NO.3. NONE FOR RESPONDENTS NO.1, 2, AND 4. K.KANNAN, J.(ORAL) The appeal is for enhancement of compensation for the death of a person who was said to be an A-Class Contractor. The claimants were wife and three sons. One of the sons was said to have been seriously disabled in an yet another accident and was said to be wholly dependent on the deceased. Even, as regards the two other sons, they were majors, but the evidence was that they were not doing any work and they were also dependent on their father. The Tribunal rejected the evidence that the deceased was an A-Class Contractor and was earning Rs.10,000/- and the Tribunal chose to take the suggestion put to the witness that he must have been earning Rs.1500-2000/- as basis for arriving at of what he could have earned. The Tribunal took the contribution to the family at Rs.1550/-, adopted a multiplier of 8 and determined the compensation. Learned FAO No.1178 of 1998 -2- counsel appearing for the claimants contended that the choice of multiplier must have been 13 instead of 8 and even the income must have been taken at Rs.2000/- and not Rs.1500/-. Learned counsel also points out that there is no compensation for loss of consortium and loss of estate. 2. In the absence of any better evidence relating to the source of income, I will take contribution to the family at Rs.1550/- as taken by the Tribunal and adopt a multiplier of 13 to hold that the loss of dependency was Rs.2,41,800/-. I will also add another Rs.16,000/- towards loss to estate, loss of consortium and funeral expenses and round the figure to Rs.2,58,000/-. 3. It is urged by the learned counsel that at the time when the award was passed, the Tribunal had granted interest only from the date of award, although petition had been filed soon after the accident in the year 1994 and for all the period when the case was pending for more than 4 years, interest had been denied. I do not find any reason why the claimant could have been denied of interest during the said period. I will, therefore, award interest @ 12% as awarded by the Tribunal from the date of petition till the date of award on the amount determined by the Tribunal. As for the amount in excess of what has been determined through this order, it shall attract interest @ 6% from the date of award of the Tribunal till the payment. The amount shall be distributed amongst the claimants providing for 40% to the wife, 30% for the invalid son, namely, Karamjit Singh and 15% each to the other two sons. 4. The appeal is allowed to the above extent. December 15, 2010 (K.KANNAN) Gulati JUDGE