F.A.O. No. 4636 of 2008 1 .. .. IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH F.A.O. No. 4636 of 2008 (O&M) Date of Decision: October 4th ,2011 Rameshwar and another .... Appellants Versus Inderjeet and others .... Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIJENDER SINGH MALIK Present Mr. Arun Yadav , Advocate, for the appellants. Mr. R.N.Singal, Advocate, for respondent No.3-Insurance Company. VIJENDER SINGH MALIK, J. This is an appeal brought by the claimants seeking enhancement of compensation awarded to them vide award dated 14.1.2008 by the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Rewari (for short, "the Tribunal") in a sum of ` 2,25,000/- on the death of their son, named Shish Ram. The case of the petitioners can be briefly put as under: On 31.1.2006, at about 3.30 AM, Shish Ram was travelling in a truck bearing registration No. HR-38L-873 as a cleaner. It was driven by respondent No.1 – Inderjeet. Suddenly the trailer moving ahead applied brakes on account of which, F.A.O. No. 4636 of 2008 2 .. .. the driver of the truck could not control his vehicle and had hit the trailer. Shish Ram suffered multiple injuries in the said accident, on account of which he died at the spot. The matter was reported to the police, where FIR No. 13 dated 1.2.2006 was registered for an offence punishable under sections 279/337 and 304 IPC. Shish Ram was 25 years old and was working as cleaner and earning ` 4,000/- per month at the time of his death. The respondents had resisted the claim petition. Respondents No.1 and 2, the driver and owner of the vehicle in question, have denied the accident itself to have occurred. It is pleaded that if the accident is found to have occurred and liability has to be fixed for payment of compensation, then the vehicle was insured with respondent No. 3, who shall be liable to pay the compensation. Respondent No. 3 has also denied the factum of accident. It was pleaded that the driver of the offending vehicle did not possess a valid and effective driving licence at the time of accident, which amounted to violation of terms and conditions of the insurance policy. The Insurance company has, therefore, submitted that it has no responsibility to pay the compensation. On the pleadings of the parties, the following issues were framed by the Tribunal. 1.Whether Shish Ram expired after sustained injuries in a motor vehicle accident on 31.1.2006 due to rash F.A.O. No. 4636 of 2008 3 .. .. and negligent driving of vehicle No. HR-38L-873 by its driver respondent No.1 ?OPP 2.if issue No.1 is proved, what amount of compensation, the petitioners are entitled to and from whom?OPP 3.Whether the respondent No.1 was not holding the effective and valid driving licence on the date of accident?OPR3 4.Relief. Parties led their respective evidence. Hearing learned counsel representing them, learned Tribunal awarded compensation in a sum of ` 2,25,000/- to the claimants vide the impugned award. Aggrieved by the aforesaid award, the claimants have brought this appeal. I have heard Shri Arun Yadav,learned counsel for the appellants and Shri R.N.Singal, learned counsel for respondent No.3 and have gone through the record. Learned counsel for the appellants has submitted that evidence was led before the Tribunal to prove the age of the deceased as 25 years as also his income at ` 4,000/-. According to him, instead of applying the multiplier system, learned Tribunal has awarded ` 2,25,000/- as lump sum compensation, which is not adequate compensation for the loss suffered by the claimants. No reason has been given by learned Tribunal to have not adopted the multiplier system. The deceased has been 25 years of age and learned Tribunal has not disagreed with the F.A.O. No. 4636 of 2008 4 .. .. claimants on the age of the deceased. The claimants had claimed their son to be working as a cleaner and earning ` 4000/- per month. Even if it is taken that the claimants might have exaggerated the income of their deceased son, it can be taken that a sum of ` 3,600/- per month is earned now a days by an unskilled labourer and the income of the deceased could not have been below this amount. It is a case where the claimants are the parents of the deceased and the dependency of the parents would be half of the income of their deceased son. Therefore, the monthly dependency of the claimants comes to ` 1,800/- and multiplying it with 12, their annual dependency comes to be ` 21,600/-. The age of the deceased is stated to be 25 years. However, the claimants had claimed their age to be 50 and 45 years respectively. No challenge has been there on the record to the age of the claimants. As the multiplier in case of death of a bachelor would be governed by the average age of the claimants, the same may be taken as 47-48 years and it would fall in the age group of 46 to 50 years, for which the multiplier of 13 is laid down by Hon`ble Supreme Court of India in Smt. Sarla Verma and others Vs. Delhi Transport Corporation and another 2009 (3) RCR (Civil) 77. Multiplying the annual dependency of ` 21,600/- with 13, I find a sum of ` 2,80,800/- as lost by the claimants in the death of their son. The claimants are entitled to a sum of ` 10,000/- F.A.O. No. 4636 of 2008 5 .. .. towards loss of estate and funeral expenses. Therefore, the claimants are entitled to ` 2,90,800/- as compensation on the death of their son in the aforesaid accident. The appeal is, consequently, allowed enhancing the compensation from ` 2,25,000/- to ` 2,90,800/-, which shall be shared by the appellant-claimants in equal. They shall be entitled to interest at the rate of 9% per annum on the amount of compensation from the date of filing of petition till realization of the same. (VIJENDER SINGH MALIK) JUDGE October 4th, 2011 som