FAO No. 5184 of 2008 -1- In the High Court of Punjab & Haryana at Chandigarh FAO No. 5184 of 2008 (O&M) Date of decision : 29.4.2010 Luxmi Devi and others ... Appellants vs Surender Singh and others .... Respondents Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rajesh Bindal Present: Mr. P. S. Jakhar, Advocate for Mr. Rajesh Sheoran, Advocate, for the appellants. Mr. R. M. Suri, Advocate, for the Insurance company. Mr. D. D. Gupta, Additional Advocate General, Haryana. Rajesh Bindal J. Challenge in the present appeal is to the award of the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Hisar (hereinafter to be referred as “the Tribunal”), only on the ground that the multiplier applied by the Tribunal considering the age of the deceased is not correct. Along with appeal, application has been filed seeking condonation of delay of 52 days in filing the appeal. The brief facts of the case are that on 19.11.2006 at about 9.45 p.m., Har Narain, aged 40 years, along with his nephew Parkash was waiting for a bus to Hisar at bye pass Chowk, Rohtak. In the meantime, a bus bearing registration no. HR-39-A/8508, came from Delhi side, which was being driven by respondent no. 1. The bus was stopped by its driver for alighting and boarding the passengers. When Har Narain was boarding the offending vehicle from front side and Parkash was boarding from back side, the driver suddenly started it in a rash and negligent manner without seeing that all the passengers had boarded the bus. Due to this impact, Har Narain fell down on the road from the front door and he was crushed under the rear tyres of the bus. He was taken to PGIMS, Rohtak, by Parkash where Har Narain succumbed to the injuries. Thereafter, the dependents of the deceased filed claim petition, which was allowed by the learned Tribunal. Considering the monthly dependency of the deceased as Rs. 2,000/- per month and applying the multiplier of 14, compensation of Rs. 3,36,000/- was awarded. However, still dissatisfied with the award, the claimants filed the present appeal. FAO No. 5184 of 2008 -2- Learned counsel for the appellants raised only one argument that considering the age of the deceased in the present case as 40 years, learned Tribunal has not applied correct multiplier which should have been 16 and not 14 as adopted. The submission was that compensation payable to the appellants be enhanced. Learned counsels for the respondents submitted that the award of the learned Tribunal is fully justified. The claimants have been granted compensation as per judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in Sarla Verma (Smt.) and others vs Delhi Transport Corporation and another 2009 (6) SCC 121. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the paper-book. The income assessed by the learned Tribunal is not disputed by either of the parties. It is only the application of multiplier which is in dispute in the present appeal. Hon'ble the Supreme Court in Sarla Verma's case (supra) laid down certain guide-lines for the purpose of calculation of compensation in the form of determination of dependency and application of multiplier. The relevant paragraph thereof are extracted below: “42. We therefore hold that the multiplier to be used should be as mentioned in column (4) of the table above (prepared by applying Kerala SRTC v. Susamma Thomas, (1994) 2 SCC 176; U.P.SRTC v. Trilok Chandra, (1996) 4 SCC 362 and New India Assurance Co. Ltd. v. Charlie, (2005) 10 SCC 720), which starts with an operative multiplier of 18 (for the age groups of 15 to 20 and 21 to 25 years), reduced by one unit for every five years, that is M-17 for 26 to 30 years, M-16 for 31 to 35 years, M-15 for 36 to 40 years, M-14 for 41 to 45 years and M-13 for 46 to 50 years, then reduced by two units for every five years, that is, M-11 for 51 to 55 years, M-9 for 56 to 60 years, M-7 for 61 to 65 years and M-5 for 66 to 70 years.” The deceased was aged about 40 years at the time of death. Considering his age, the multiplier of 14 has been applied by the Tribunal, which is strictly in conformity with Sarla Verma's case (supra), hence, no fault can be found with the award of the Tribunal. Once there is no merit in the appeal, the same is dismissed and even the application for condonation of delay is also dismissed. 29.4.2010 ( Rajesh Bindal) vs. Judge