FAO No. 6367 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH FAO No. 6367 of 2010 Date of decision March 7, 2011 Manjit Kaur and another ....... Appellants Versus Harjit Singh and others ........Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN Present:- Mr. Sushil Saini, Advocate for the appellant. **** 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ?No 2. To be referred to the reporters or not? No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest?No K. Kannan, J (oral). 1. The appeal is for enhancement of claim for compensation for death of a 21 year old bachelor and the claimant was said to be running a dairy business. The claimants were the mother and sister. In the absence of any documentary proof relating to the income. The Tribunal assessed the income at `3500/-, deducted 50% for personal expenses and adopted a multiplier of 15. 2. The counsel for the appellant pleads that every one of the parameters for determining the compensation was wrongly assessed. According to him, the source of income from dairy farming itself was not doubted by the Tribunal and therefore the income could not have been taken merely at `3500/-. I cannot take this argument as worthy of FAO No. 6367 of 2010 2 acceptance for if the Tribunal had no material to make its inference on income on oral assertion and therefore made an assessment of 3500/- as an average income, I cannot fault the same. Again a provision of deduction of deduction of 50% is in accordance with the scale suggested by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Sarla Verma Vs.Delhi Road Transport Corporation reported in (2009) 6 SC 121 to provide for homogeneity in approach. Even the choice of multiplier cannot be merely dependent on the age of the deceased for a bachelor with prospects of future marriage and consequently a deduction of contribution in the family, the choice of multiplier on the basis of the age of the claimant who was a mother was perfectly justified. The choice of multiplier of 15 conforms therefore to the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Shakti Devi Vs. New India Insurance Company JT (2010) 13 SC 103. The over all compensation of `3,35,000/- as assessed by the Tribunal could be just and adequate and I find no reason to interfere with the same. The award is confirmed and the appeal is dismissed. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE March 7, 2011 archana