l HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPU DIVISION BENC CO. ON’BLE RI RAJ GuT C J HON’BLE SHRI RANGNATH ICHANDRAKAR J Misc. Appeal (C) No.134gof2oos ' I U W sharanl /o -ate Shrl Smgh aged abeut 35 years Appellants Claimant Surendra Rlnku S/o Late Shn Surendra Smg ged about 14years Monika D/o Late Shrl Surendra Slngh aged about 12 years enuka, D/o Late Srl Surendra‘Sing, ged about 1O iye'ars Karnail Singh; Late Shri Surendra ingh, aged about 8 years urjeet Kaur, W/o Late Shri Chiman La rora, aged about 65 years Appellant No.2 to 5 are being represented Iegal guardia and mothe ppellant No.1 .Usharani All , resident of n r a andai /ho,wl<, ajnandgaoh (CG) VERSUS - ml Singh S/o Shrl arlram angall aged about 22 years R/o Shamdinga Thana — arsol Distt Tat Jhrkhan (Driver inland Roa Trnsport rivate Limied r -221/2 State Bank Road Calcutta est Bengal) (Owner) Branch Manager Oriental insurance Co Ltd Calcutta Policy No 3514/200 (insurance Company) R RAM H SH EEV rA s h a V R h h a S S l> A N C/ R Respondents A H B Non-applicants ‘ - Be a ad ) d a (P t ‘ W 2 9 Miscellaneous Appeal under $ection 173 of Motor Vehicles Aét i i Present : . Shri Jitendra Gupta and Shri §K Guha, counsel for the appellants. E I None for respondents No.1 and 2. Shri Sudhir Agrawal, counsel for respondent No.3. ORDER l (15th February, 201’1) The following order of the Qourt was passed by Rajeev Gupta, C.J. This is claimants’ appeal for enhanéement of the compensation awarded by the 9‘“ Additional Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Durg (for short ‘the Tribunal’) vide award dated 23.07.2005, passed in Claim Case No.1 15/2004. 2) As against the compensation of Rs.75,45,000/:, claimed by the appellants/claimants, unfortunate widow, minor children and mother of deceased Surendra Singh by tiling a claim petition under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act, for his death in the motor accident on 14.05.2005, the Tribunal awarded a total sum of Rs.1 ,67,000/- as compensation to the claimants along with interest @ 6% per annum from the date of the filing of the claim petition till the date of actual payment. 3) The Tribunal on a close scrutiny of the entire evidence‘led before it held that deceased Surendra Singh died on account of the inuries sustained b him in the motor accident on 1405:2005; the j y Cb‘i ‘ accident occurred due to rash and neglige:nt driving of the drive? of the offending vehicie Truck bearing registretion No.WB-3A/9699; as the above offending vehicie Truck on the date of the accidentwas insured with the Oriental insurance Company i Limitedgand the Insurance Company could not establish any breach of the poIiCy conditions, the insurance Company was .Iiabie to pay the compensation to the claimants. 4) As therespondentshave not tiled any appeal against the award, the above findings recorded byi the Tribunal have now attained finality. 5) The Tribunal assessed the income of the deceased at Rs.15,000/-' per annum, on the basis of the notional income prescribed in the Second Schedule under Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicles Act. By deducting 1/3” of Rs.15,000/— towards the personal expenses of the deceased, the claimants’ dependency was assessed at Rs.10,000/- >per annum. By multiplying the annual dependency of Rs.10,000/- with the multiplier of 16, the compensation was worked cut to Rs;1,60,000/—. By awarding further sum of Rs.7,000/— under other heads, the Tribunal awarded a total sum of Rs.1 ,67,GOO/— as compensation to the claimants for the death of deceased Surendra Singh in the motor accident. The ‘ Tribunal further directed payment of interest on the above amount - of compensation of Rs.1.,67,000/- @ 6% per annum from thevdate of filing of the claim petition till the date of actual payment. 6) Shri Jitendra Gupra and Shri SK Guha, learned counsel for the appellants submitted that the Tribunal hastened in not ,.\ a , xx 1, ' E3“ is: \ accepting the claimants' evider$ce aboyt the income of the‘ w deceas_ed and in assessing his income at‘Rs.15,000/-vper annum l oniy, and In awarding iow compensation of RS1 67 000/- only 't‘) Shrl Sudhlr Agrawai iearned counsiei for respondent No3 ' the Oriental Insurance Company Limited, r on the other hand supported the award and contended that the compensation of' Rs1 67 OOOI- awarded by the Tribunai is just and proper compensation in the facts and Circumstances of the present case 8) in a motor accident ciaim case w Important is that the , compensation to be awarded by theCourtxis l Tribunals should be just and proper compensation in‘the facts ahd circumstances of the ‘ caSe. it should neither be a meager amouht of compensation, nor’ 7 a bonanza. 9) . Now! we shall examine as to whether the compensation of i Rs.1,67,000I— awarded Lby the Tribunal is just and proper compensation in the facts and circumstances of the present case 10) True the claimants pleaded that deceased Surendra Singh V was driver-cum-owner of the Truck the eVIdence led in that behalf ‘ lv was not of clinching nature No documentary evidence was produced before the Tribunal to establish that deceased Surendra V Singh owned any Truck at all Not even his driVing license was "« produced before the Tribunal to establish, that he was a driver by profession ln-this state of evidence we do 'not fnd any fault irfth‘e approach of the Tribunat in discarding the claimants eVidence I, about the income of the deceased i ”w h /QN; / 11) ’ Ne§ertheless, the inco‘me §f the defwésed assessed by the (6W ‘ f i Tribunal at Rs.15,000/- per annum in the iyear 2002 is certainly on t the lower side and requires reconsideratioh. 12) ConSIdering that deceased Surendra Singh was aged about 4O years we are of the opinion that he eould have easrly earned Rs 70-75 per day In the year 2002 even by working as an un-skiiied Iabour We therefore propose to re-compute the compensation taking the Income of the deceased at Rs 2 OOOI~ per month and Rs.24 OOOI— per annum 13) By deducting the usuai 1/3'“ of Rs 24 OOOI- towards the personal expenses of the deceased the claimants dependency is assessed at Rs.16,000/— per annum. 14) Considering that deceased Surendra Singh was aged about 40 years on the date of the accident, we are of the opinion that multiplier of 15 would be appropriate in the present case. 15) ‘ By multiplying the annual dependency of Rs.16,000/- with the multiplier of 15, the compensation works out to Rs.2,40,000/—. The claimantsare further entitled to receive Rs.5,000/— towards funeral expenses; Rs.5,000/- for loss of estate; and Rs.5,000/— for loss of consortium to the widow. The claimants, thus, become entitled to receive a total sum of Rs.2,55,000/— as compensation for the death . of deceased Surendra Singh in the motor accident. 16) Learned counsel forthe parties submitted that with a"‘vigw to avoid any possible dispute between the parties about the period for which the claimants‘areentltled to’receiv‘e interest on the enhanced amount of compensation, the amount of interest on the enhanced amount of,compensation may be quantified in this appeai itself. 17) Considering all the relevant aspects of'the matter including the delay in disposal of the, claim petition and the present appeal, and the fact that the insurance Company alone is not to be blamed for the entire delay in the matter, we quantify the amount of interest on the enhanced amount offcompehsation of Rs.88,000/- at Rs.7,000/-. 18) For the foregoing reasons, the appeal a-filed by the appellants/ claimants for enhancement of the compensation is allowed in part. The compensation of"Rs.1,67,000/— awarded by the Tribunal is enhanced to Rs’.2,55,000/- with further quantified amount of interest of Rs.7;000/— on the enhanced amount of compensation of Rs.88,000/-. 19) Respondent No.3 the Oriental insurance Company Limited is granted three months’ time for depositing the total sum of Rs.95,000/— (Rs.88,000/- towards enhanced amoUnt of compensation + Rs.7,'OOO/- towards quantified amount ofinterest on the enhanced amount of compensation of Rs.88,000/-) before the concerning Claims Tribunal. subbu 20) No order as to costs. l l Sd/— Sd/— \1 l Rang'nath Chandrakar ,- Chief Justice \l l Judge l a k1 \ ’