IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. FAO No.1255/2009 Date of Decision:16.3.2009. ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited .......... Appellant Versus Makhan Lal and others. ..........Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE JASWANT SINGH. Present: Mr.Subhash Goyal,Advocate for the appellant-Insurance Co. JASWANT SINGH,J(Oral). Appellant-Insurance Company is in appeal against the award dated 12.12.2008 passed by the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Bathinda (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal) whereby parents-respondents 1 and 2 have been awarded total compensation amounting to Rs.5,38,000/- (on various counts) for the death of their unmarried son-deceased Jai Pal in a motor vehicular accident that took place on the intervening night of 9/10.5.2007. The liability to pay the compensation amount has been fastened upon the appellant- Insurance Company, being the insurer of the offending vehicle, Balero Jeep bearing No.RJ-28-UA/0254. At the time of accident the deceased Jai Pal was travelling in the said Balero Jeep (owned by respondent no.4-Gobind Chand) being driven by respondent no.3-Karshan Dass, when it smashed against a stationary truck. It has been submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant- FAO No.1255/2009 -2- Insurance Company that the learned Tribunal has erred in holding that the accident took place due to rash and negligent driving of respondent no.3, whereas in fact the accident took place due to parking of the truck bearing registration no. MP-06E/2823,on the metalled portion of the road. It is next submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant- Insurance Company that the income and consequent assessment of the dependency of the claimants has been wrongly fixed on a higher side without there being any evidence in that regard. It is also submitted by the learned counsel that the claim petition was bad for non-joinder of the necessary parties i.e. driver and owner of the aforesaid truck against which the offending vehicle i.e. Balero Jeep had struck. After hearing the learned counsel for the appellant-Insurance Company and perusing the impugned award, I find no merit in these submission of the learned counsel and the same are rejected. A perusal of the impugned award shows that it has come on the record that due to bursting of both rear tyres of the aforesaid truck, the truck was parked on the side of the road and after switching on the parking lights, the driver of the truck had gone for getting necessary repairs done. It is apparent from the record that in regard to the accident in question, FIR Ex.A2 was lodged by one Dalip Singh, Cleaner of the aforesaid truck. After going through the site plan it was deposed by him that one tyre of the truck was on the kutcha portion of the road and the other on the metalled. During his cross examination respondents could not extract anything which could prove that the truck was wrongly parked on the metalled portion of the road. Moreover, the FAO No.1255/2009 -3- evidence of said Dalip Singh, Cleaner has gone unrebutted. Accordingly, on the basis of the evidence available on record, the learned Tribunal found that it was due to rash and negligent driving of the Balero Jeep that the accident had taken place. So far as assessment of income of the deceased and consequent dependency of the claimants is concerned, documentary evidence was produced by the claimants which showed that deceased Jai Pal Goel, aged 22 years, had done Diploma in Mechanical Engineering and at the time of his death he was working as Erection Engineer in Shivam Corporation, Madhya Pradesh. One Mr.Angad Shahi, Supervisor of Shivam Corporation had appeared as AW2 and produced Ex.A6 showing the detail of payment of salary made to the deceased which was Rs.15,000/-. After taking into consideration various factors like allowances being drawn by the deceased, personal expenses incurred by him for maintaining himself; and marrying at a later stage and maintaining his own family, the learned Tribunal assessed the dependency as Rs.5000/- per month for the first 5 years and thereafter Rs.2000/- per month for the next 7 years. No evidence to the contrary was led by the respondents to prove that Ex.A6 was a forged and fictitious document. In my opinion,the learned Tribunal after carefully examining the documentary as well as oral evidence, has rightly assessed the income of the deceased/dependency of the claimants and no fault can be found with the same. As regard the non-joinder of the driver and owner of the truck, on the basis of material available on record, learned Tribunal correctly held that since the offending Vehicle i.e. Balero Jeep had hit the stationary truck from FAO No.1255/2009 -4- behind, the owner and driver of the truck were not necessary party to the claim petition. No other point has been raised. For the reasons stated above,finding no merit in this appeal the same is hereby dismissed in limine. The Registry is directed to remit the statutory amount of Rs.25,000/- deposited by the appellant-Insurance Company, at the time of filing of the present appeal, to it. 16.3.2009. (Jaswant Singh) joshi Judge