1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT JAIPUR BENCH, JAIPUR ORDER S.B. Civil Misc. Appeal No.942/2000 (Tej Singh Vs. Brij Sunder Sharma and ors.) Date of Order :: 5th August, 2010 HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MAHESH BHAGWATI Mr. Kamal Parashar for the appellant. Mr. Tej Prakash Sharma for the Insurance Co. Mr. Nawab Ali for respondent No.2 & 3. *** Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment and award dated 5th April, 2000, rendered by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Malpura, whereby the learned Tribunal decreed an amount of Rs.80,000/- in favour of the appellant-claimant and against the respondents-non-claimants No.1, 4 & 5. Dissatisfied with this amount of compensation, the appellant has beseeched to enhance the same. 2. Contextual facts of the case depict that on 30th November, 1995, the appellant and his wife Shringar Kanwar were traveling in a Bus bearing registration No. RJ-14-P- 4246 from Kota to Jaipur. When their Bus reached near Police Station Hindauli on National Highway No.12, one private Bus bearing registration No.RPJ-6474 driven by its driver rashly and negligently, suddenly 2 emerged from the opposite direction and collided with their Bus, as a result of which his wife Shringar Kanwar sustained grievous injuries on her head. One FIR of this accident came to be registered at Police Station Hindauli. The claimant filed a claim petition before the learned Tribunal which was decreed for an amount as indicated hereinabove. 3. Heard the learned counsel for the parties and carefully perused the impugned award and other relevant material on record. 4. Learned counsel for the appellant assailed the impugned award canvassing that the amount of compensation so reckoned by the Tribunal is abysmally low. The learned Tribunal neither considered the income of the deceased as was suggested by the claimant nor considered the notional income in absence of there being no income of the deceased. The Tribunal arbitrarily awarded Rs.80,000/- sans assigning any cogent reason. Learned counsel for the appellant contended that the legislature has proposed to consider Rs.15,000/- annual income for those non-earning persons who meet with a fatal and disability in non-fatal accident, but the learned Tribunal did not pass the award in accordance with the provisions of law. The impugned award is arbitrary and capricious, which deserves to be set aside and the amount of compensation needs to be enhanced. 3 5. Learned counsel for the Insurance Co. defended the impugned award and stated the same to be just and proper. 6. Having reflected over the submissions made at the bar and carefully scanned the relevant material on record including the impugned award, it is noticed that the dependent while corroborating other facts of the claim petition stated Rs.1,000/- to be the monthly income of the deceased Shringar Kanwar, which she used to earn out of agricultural work. The claimant deposed that Shringar Kanwar was having 10- 5 bighas of agricultural land. AW/2 Jagannath Singh has supported the statement of AW/1 Tej Singh. The deceased was only 21 years of age at the time of accident. The learned Tribunal did not consider any income of the deceased and arbitrarily, sans assigning any reason, awarded a lump sum amount of Rs.80,000/- to the claimant. 7. It is true that the claimant has not produced any evidence to prove Rs.1,000/- to be the monthly income of the deceased Shringar Kanwar. Albeit, he has deposed in the cross examination that she had 10-5 Bighas of land but no proof in support thereof has been filed. It is a settled proposition of law that mere statement of a fact is not the proof thereof. Unless it is proved that the deceased had agricultural land, it cannot be inferred that she was 4 earning anything out of agriculture land. However, she must have undeniably rendered her valuable services in the home. Though her services, cannot be evaluated in terms of money, but if these services are engaged by any person, he will have to incur expenses to avail them. Hence, to meet such a situation, the Legislature in second schedule appended to the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, has proposed the notional income of those persons who had no income prior to accident. In view thereof, I deem just and proper to consider the notional income to be the income of the deceased for the purpose of computing the amount of compensation. The deceased is survived only with her husband. She was of the age of 21 years at the time of her death. She had no children, hence, it can safely be said that had she been earning Rs.15,000/- per year, she must have spent 50% amount towards maintaining herself, had she been alive. Thus, the amount towards the loss of dependency is recomputed thus: Notional Income Rs.15,000/- Half of it Rs.7,500/- 7,500 X 12 = Rs.90,000/- 8. Apart the amount of compensation towards the loss of dependency, Rs.5,000/- are awarded towards loss of consortium and Rs.2,000/- towards funeral expenses. No other amount is found to have been spent by 5 the claimant on deceased. Hence, he is entitled to receive Rs.97,000/- instead of Rs.80,000/- from the respondents non- claimant Nos.1, 4 & 5. 9. For the reasons stated above, the appeal is allowed in part and the impugned award dated 5th April, 2000 stands modified as under: “The appellant-claimant is held entitled to claim Rs. 97,000/- from the respondents-non-claimants Nos. 1, 4 & 5, jointly and severally. The claimant appellant shall also be entitled to get interest @ 6% per annum on the enhanced amount of Rs.17,000/- from the date of filing of the claim petition till the amount of compensation is actually realized. 10. Rest of the terms under the impugned award shall remain unchanged.” 11. The impugned award stands modified as indicated here-in-above. 12. There shall be no order as to costs. (MAHESH BHAGWATI)J. Pcg