THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY Civil Miscellaneous Appeal No.2753 of 2003 Dated 23rd September, 2010 Between: The Oriental Insurance Company Limited, Hyderabad. …Appellant And Parsha Satttaiah and 6 others …Respondents Counsel for the Appellant : Mr.Ch.S.V.Suraj for Mr.A.Krishnam Raju Counsel for the respondents: ---- The Court made the following: ORDER:- This Civil Miscellaneous Appeal arises out of award, dated 06-02-2003, in OP.No.1143 of 1998, on the file of the Chairman, Motor Vehicles Accidents Claims Tribunal- cum-I Additional District Judge, Ranga Reddy District, at L.B.Nagar, Hyderabad (for short ‘the Tribunal’). I have heard Sri Ch.S.V.Suraj, learned Counsel representing Sri A.Krishnam Raju, learned Counsel for the appellant. No one represented the respondents at the hearing on 16-09-2010 and also today. The Oriental Insurance Company Limited i.e., Respondent No.2 in the abovesaid MVOP is the appellant in this appeal. The respondents herein are the claimants in the said MVOP, filed for compensation on account of the untimely death of one Dhanraj Yadav (herein after referred to as the deceased). The brief facts of the case are as under: On 29-07-1998, while the deceased and his friends were proceeding in Tata Sumo vehicle bearing registration No.AP 15E 1989 from Secunderabad to Siddipet, a lorry bearing registration No.AP 28T 997 came in opposite direction near a factory at Pragnapur and hit the Tata Sumo, resulting in the death of the deceased and three others travelling along with him in the said vehicle. Respondent Nos.1 and 2 are the parents and respondent Nos.3 to 6 are the brother and sisters of the deceased. The Tribunal, having found that the accident occurred on account of rash and negligent driving of the driver of the lorry, which was insured with the appellant, assessed the income of the deceased at Rs.3,000/- per month and after deducting 1/3rd towards his personal expenditure, took the contribution of the deceased to his family at Rs.2,000/- per month. The Tribunal adopted the multiplier of 17, by taking the age of the deceased as 24 years as on the date of his death, and assessed the loss of dependency at Rs.4,08,000/-. Though the Tribunal awarded further compensation under different heads, it restricted the total compensation to Rs.4 lakhs as claimed by the respondents and apportioned the same among the dependents. At the hearing, learned Counsel for the appellant has submitted that the Tribunal has committed a serious error in taking the age of the deceased, who was unmarried, for assessing his income. The learned Counsel submitted that the law is well-settled that in case of an unmarried deceased, the age of either of the parents, whichever is less, shall be taken into consideration for assessing the loss of dependency. In C.K. Subramania Iyer Vs. T.Kunhikuttan Nair[1] and National Insurance Company Ltd., Vs. Swarnalata Das[2] the Supreme Court held that a multiplier shall be chosen appropriate to the age of the deceased or the age of the dependants, whichever is lower. The said view has been reiterated in H.S.Ahammed Hussain Vs. Irfan Ahammed[3] and Gyanchand Jain Vs. Parmanand[4]. In the light of the ratio laid down in the above-mentioned judgments, the contention of the learned Counsel for the appellant deserves to be accepted. The Tribunal fell into an error by considering the age of the deceased instead of taking the age of his mother i.e., respondent No.2 herein. As the age of the mother of the deceased was 48 years at the time of the accident, the multiplier of 13 requires to be adopted as per the judgment of the Supreme Court in Sarla Verma and others vs. Delhi Transport Corporation and another[5]. In view of the above, award dated 06-2-2003 in O.P. No.1143 of 1998 is modified by directing that the multiplier of 13 be adopted instead of 17. The Tribunal shall, accordingly, re-compute the compensation awarded to the claimants in terms of this judgment. Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is allowed to the extent indicated above. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Dated 23rd September, 2010 lur [1]) (1969) 3 SCC 64=AIR 1970 SC 376 [2]) 1993 Supp (2) SCC 743=1993 SCC (Cri) 788 [3]) (2002) 6 SCC 52 [4]) 2003 ACJ 2152 [5] 2009 (3) ALD 83 (SC)