FAO No.168 of 1996 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH FAO No.168 of 1996 DATE OF DECISION: December 7, 2010 NEW INDIA ASSURANCE CO. LIMITED ...APPELLANT VERSUS SMT. SHARMILA DEVI & OTHERS ...RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN. PRESENT: MR. L.M. SURI, SR. ADVOCATE WITH MR. NEERAJ KHANNA, ADVOCATE FOR THE APPELLANT. NONE FOR THE RESPONDENTS. K.KANNAN, J.(ORAL) 1. The appeal is by the Insurance Company on the issue of a quantum by pointing out that the Tribunal had adopted a multiplier of 19 to a person who is aged 23 years and has also provided for increase in salary almost two times the amount which is said to be his income. It is, therefore, contended both, as regards both multiplicand and multiplier, the Tribunal had committed mistakes and although the insurance company did not have the benefit of defence under Section 170 of the Motor Vehicle Act, this Court must still make the intervention to set right the gross errors which have crept in that has resulted in an award which was more than just. 2. At the time when the appeal was admitted, I notice that the Tribunal's award has been stayed to the extent of 20% and the remaining amount has been allowed to be executed. I would reappraise the whole FAO No.168 of 1996 -2- issue if it pertains to any of the permissible defences under the Motor Vehicles Act which the Insurance Company could join the issues with. On the issue of quantum I would not make an intervention on any aspect other than what is clearly untenable and illegal. The choice of multiplier as 19 is surely out of sync with what is provided under Schedule II and as also what is said in the judgement of Supreme Court in UPSRTC vs. Trilok Chandra, 1996 ACJ 831. Several decisions have come about which lay down that in no case shall the multiplier be in excess of 18. The method of applying the multiplier has come through only by amendment by the introduction of Schedule-II in 1994 and by the interpretation of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Trilok Chandra's case referred to above. This judgement has been rendered when there were several methods of determining compensation that was adopted by the various Courts. A lump-sum method was one such and a suitable multiplier depending on the numbers of years of service left was also another method. For the person who is aged 23 years, a higher value of multiplier had been prevalent in Courts and I am not inclined to re- write the award only for addition of a unit of multiplier than what would have been otherwise possible or slight variation in the multiplicand taken by the Tribunal as an increase of salary by 50% in the manner suggested by the decision of the Supreme Court in Sarla Verma vs. DTC, reported as (2009) 6 SCC 121, would have meant the multiplicand to be a trifle more than what was taken by the Tribunal. The over all compensation of Rs.5,70,000/- examined from perspective of what is just requires no intervention. However, the award of interest @ 15% seems high. Since the award of the Tribunal had been stayed upto 20% of the award, the balance amount due on the day of award as regards principal alone shall be restricted to 6% instead FAO No.168 of 1996 -3- of 15%. With this modification as regards in the rate of interest, the appeal is disposed of. December 7, 2010 (K.KANNAN) Gulati JUDGE