1 S.B. CIVIL MISC. APPEAL NO.690/2004 SMT.VINOD DEVI & Ors V/s NAWAL SINGH & Ors DATE OF ORDER :- MAY 13, 2008 HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GUMAN SINGH Shri Pradeep Singh for the appellants. Shri Amarnath Pareek, for United India Insurance company Ltd. 1. The case has come up for admission. Both the parties agree to dispose of the case at admission stage. 2. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the entire record of the miscellaneous appeal. 3. This civil misc. appeal under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 , has been filed by dependents of deceased Birju Singh, for enhancement of claim against the award dated December 11, 2003, of the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Jaipur City, Jaipur, in Claim Petition No.1076/2001, whereby a sum of Rs.3,95,000 has been awarded as compensation to the claimants-appellants. 4. Learned counsel for the claimants appellants submitted that the learned Tribunal has failed to award the adequate compensation as the income of the 2 deceased who was a driver has been assessed on lower side. He submitted that the deceased was earning Rs.5,000/- per month but the learned Tribunal assessed the income of Rs.2,500/- for calculating the compensation. Therefore, the compensation may be enhanced. 5. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents supported the award of the learned Tribunal on the ground that the finding of the learned Tribunal is correct and based on evidence and the record and as such this is not a case for interference by this Court. He further submitted that the learned Tribunal has rightly assessed the income of the deceased in the absence of sufficient documentary evidence to support that the deceased was regularly getting Rs.5,000/- by way of monthly salary as driver and the certificate is not of much consequence to demonstrate the actual stable regularly paid salary of the deceased. 6. In view of the arguments advanced, on perusal of the award as well as the record of the case, it is revealed 3 that at the time of accident the deceased was working as driver and in the absence of proof of the fact that he was regularly getting Rs.5,000/- per month as a salary, the stable income of the deceased cannot be said to e Rs.5,000/-. The learned Tribunal has assessed the income in little lower side and the compensation deserves to be assessed on the basis of Rs.3,000/- per month income of the driver after deducing 1/3 of expenses of the deceased. Accordingly the loss of income can be compensated as Rs. 24,000/- x 18 = Rs.4,32,000/- plus Rs.35,000/- on other head awarded by the learned Tribunal. 7. Accordingly, while maintaining the terms of award upto the date of filing appeal, the amount of the award is enhanced from Rs.3,95,000/- to Rs.4,67,000/- with interest @ 6% p.a. from the date of appeal with the condition that failure to make payment under the award within a period of three months from this order shall entail interest @ 9% p.a. from the date of appeal i.e. 12.3.2004. 4 8 The award stand modified and the appeal stands disposed of accordingly. (Guman Singh)J. Chauhan/-