IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH FAO No.1056 of 1996 Date of decision: 21.07.2010 National Insurance Company Limited ....Appellant versus Karam Singh and others ...Respondents II. FAO No.1057 of 1996 National Insurance Company Limited ....Appellant versus Mohinder Kaur and others ...Respondents III. FAO No.1058 of 1996 National Insurance Company Limited ....Appellant versus Rohtas Sharma and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr.Deepak Suri, Advocate, Advocate, for the appellant. Mr. Ravinder Arora, Advocate, for the Oriental Insurance Company. Ms. Monika Jalota, Advocate, for the respondents 1 to 4 in FAO No.1057 of 1996. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? ---- FAO No.1056 of 1996 - 2 - K.Kannan, J. (Oral) 1. The Insurance Company questioned the validity of the licence to contend that the driver had a licence only to drive a medium vehicle and did not have a heavy vehicle motor licence. The Insurance Company merely relied on a report of the surveyor but took no steps to produce either the register from the authority or cause the production of the licence from the driver or the owner. The Insurance Company could not be said to have discharged the onus of proof relating to the defence permissible under Section 149(2). The award of the Tribunal are confirmed and the appeals are dismissed. The licence which was produced as R-1 definitely carried out such endorsement but the genuineness could not be impeached in the manner required to be done. 2. There is also a claim for enhancement, at the instance of the mother, who claimed that she was aged 40, for death of the son, who was aged 25 years. The deceased was a cleaner in the vehicle and the Tribunal took the income to be Rs.18,000/- annually and provided for 1/3rd deduction for his personal expenses and arrived at an annual dependency of Rs.12,000/-. While working out the compensation, it adopted a multiplier of 16 but still reduced the multiplicand from Rs.12,000/- to Rs.6,000/-. It was literally slicing the multiplier from 16 to 8 for an extent of dependency which had fixed at Rs.12,000/- per year. The counsel also pleads that the conventional heads of the compensation for loss of love and affection, loss of estate and funeral expenses have not been provided. 3. If the reworking were to be done in terms of the judgment in FAO No.1056 of 1996 - 3 - Sarla Verma, Rs.18,000/- which was determined as the income should be deducted by 50% for death of a bachelor and the extent of annual contribution must have been taken as Rs.9,000/-. For a person, who was aged 25 years, the appropriate multiplier would have been 16 and Rs.1,44,000/- would have been payable. To add the conventional heads the claim would be another Rs.10,000/-. I would round it off to Rs.1,55,000/- and since the amount that has already been awarded is Rs.1 lakh, the petitioner shall be entitled to additional Rs.55,000/-. This additional amount shall bear interest at 7.5% from the date of the award of the Tribunal till the date of payment. The additional amount shall be borne by the appellant and the 9th respondent, in view of the finding rendered by the Tribunal that there was a case of composite negligence and direction for sharing the liability as contained in the award is maintained. The cross appeal is partly allowed to the above extent. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 21.07.2010 sanjeev