F.A.O.NO. 2841 OF 2001 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH F.A.O.NO. 2841 OF 2001 Date of decision:6th September, 2010 Smt. Nihal Devi .......Appellant Versus Parkash and others ........Respondents BEFORE: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN Present: Mr. Raj Kumar Gupta, Advocate, for the appellant. Mr. Ravinder Arora, Advocate and Mr. Neeraj Khanna, Advocate, for the Insurance Company. 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes/No 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?Yes/No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes/No K.Kannan, J.(Oral) 1. The appeal is by the claimant seeking for enhancement. The challenge to the award is as regards the adequacy of compensation on two grounds. The Tribunal has deducted the pension received by the widow which was impermissible and the choice of the multiplier was less than what law has permitted. 2. The proof adduced as income before the Tribunal was F.A.O.NO. 2841 OF 2001 2 that the deceased was earning Rs. 13,643/-. His dependents were widow and the son. I would provide for 1/3rd deduction on the same and take monthly contribution to the family as Rs. 9,094/-. I accept the contention of the counsel appearing for the claimants that pension could not be deducted and I will take the yearly dependency to be Rs. 1,09,128/-. I shall deduct Rs. 9,128/- as going towards income tax and take the contribution to the family at Rs. 1,00,000/- The Tribunal had adopted a multiplier of 8 and learned counsel would contend that the multiplier to be adopted shall be 11. Learned counsel appearing for the insurer would contend that he was aged 55 years and 9 months and since he was above 55 years the appropriate multiplier could have been only 9. I would take the multiplier to be 10 and provide for a compensation of Rs. 9,00,000/-. It is contended by the learned counsel appearing for the insurer that the deceased would have had only 2 ½ years service and the application of multiplier of 10 is also high. I reject this contention for, when we are factoring the issue of compensation taking into account several imponderables, the argument can not be applied for a person who was to retire in 3 years a higher multiplier can not be provided. If such an argument is to be accepted, death of a retired person would require no multiplier to be adopted. I cannot accept such a plea. 3. Over and above and what have already been arrived at I would provide for conventional heads of claim for loss of consortium to the wife, loss to estate and funeral expenses by an F.A.O.NO. 2841 OF 2001 3 additional amount of Rs. 15,000/- and in all the amount that would become payable will be Rs. 9,15,000/-. The amount found in excess of what has already been awarded by the Tribunal shall attract interest at 6% from the date of the petition till the date of payment . [K.KANNAN] JUDGE 6th September, 2010 Shivani Kaushik