Civil Writ Petition No.7218 of 2011 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.7218 of 2011 Date of Decision:27.04.2011 The National Insurance Company Limited ......Petitioner Versus M.A.C.T., Faridkot and others .....Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR. Present: Mr.Ravinder Arora, Advocate, for the petitioner. **** M EHINDER S INGH S ULLAR , J.(oral) The crux of the facts, which needs a necessary mention for a limited purpose of deciding the core controversy involved in this writ petition and emanating from the record, is that Ramnik Singh had died in a motor accident, in question, due to rash and negligent driving of the driver of the offending vehicle, owned by respondent No.8 and insured with petitioner-National Insurance Company. The unfortunate mother, widow and minor children of deceased- Ramnik Singh filed the claim petition, under Section 166 read with Section 140 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Although, the claimants produced oral as well as the documentary evidence, but neither the petitioner-Insurance Company, nor the driver and the owner of the offending vehicle, produced any evidence to rebut the same in this regard. 2. Taking into consideration the entire evidence of the claimants, the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal(for short “the Tribunal”) partly accepted the claim petition and awarded the compensation to the tune of Rs.18,72,000/-, by way of impugned award dated 03.11.2010(Annexure P-1). 3. The petitioner-Insurance Company still did not feel satisfied and preferred the instant writ petition, challenging the impugned award(Annexure P-1), Civil Writ Petition No.7218 of 2011 2 invoking the provisions of Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India. 4. After hearing the learned counsel for the petitioner-Insurance Company, going through the record with his valuable assistance and after considering the entire matter deeply, to my mind, there is no merit in the present writ petition. 5. Ex facie, the argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner- Insurance Company that the amount of compensation awarded by the Tribunal is on the higher side, is not only devoid of merit but misconceived as well. 6. As is evident from the impugned award that although the claimants have produced on record sufficient evidence regarding age, income of the deceased and dependency, but neither the driver and owner of the offending vehicle, nor the Insurance Company produced an iota of evidence to rebut the oral as well as the documentary evidence brought on record by the claimants in this relevant connection. 7. Having completed all the codal formalities and taking into consideration the entire oral as well as the documentary evidence brought on record by the claimants, the Tribunal accepted the claim petition, by means of impugned award dated 03.11.2010(Annexure P-1), which in substance is, as under:- “Appreciating these submissions the claimant Sukhminder Kaur as AW1 has proved on record the academic as well as sports achievements of the deceased by way of Ex.A4 and Ex.A7 and shows beyond any doubt that the deceased was Wrestler and together with his academic qualifications shows that he was debt in both activities. Neither the arguments of Shri Navjot Singh Wahniwal Advocate for the claimants as to the age of the deceased to be around 44 years has been opposed by Shri Yash Pal Bansal Advocate for the respondents and which is duly reflected in the own pleadings of the claimants whereby his date of birth has been shown as 30.01.1965 and, thus, co-relate with the post mortem report, which is the only proof of age and, thus, needs to be accepted. Though Shri Navjot Civil Writ Petition No.7218 of 2011 3 Singh Wahniwal, Advocate for the claimants could not satisfactorily answer the query of the Court as to the likely income of the deceased from his business as a Contractor and only documentary proof by way of income tax clearance certificate Ex.A15 and assessment of income tax Ex.A16, which is much prior to his death in the year 1997 and it is well elaborated that the deceased was an agriculturist as well as is apparent from the copy of Jamabandi Ex.A8 and the bills of purchase of agriculture inputs Ex.A9, Ex.A10, Ex.A11 and Ex.A12 and which fact is also corroborated by the deposition of AW3 Jaspal Singh by means of Ex.A28 and Ex.A29 and Ex.A12 and nothing tangible has come in his cross examination to doubt his credentials and having regard that the deceased was an all rounder as is established from his Contractor Certificate Ex.A14 and having Engineering background reflected from his certificates placed on the record by way of Ex.A4 and Ex.A5 to the mind of the Court sufficiently establishes that the deceased was a successful person in life and had varied interests in all activities of life and the income of the deceased reflects from J Form Ex.A9 and Ex.A10 are further indicators in this direction and being dabbling in sees shows that the deceased was a progressive farmer and in the light of fact that the deceased had a Graduate widow and school going children, which is reflected from their school/tuition academic certificate Ex.A17 to Ex.A28 shows that the deceased was maintaining his children with equal fervor and were studying in good institutions and has a widowed mother and having regard to the rising trend of price index these days and the fact that the deposition of AW1 Sukhminder Kaur has never thwarted by any means and even the deposition of AW2 Kirandeep Singh is a corroborative factor of these activities of income of the deceased together with the fact that the compensation is neither a booty nor a pittance and a legal right of the claimants and keeping in view that with the passage of time the deceased would have become old and his income would have diminished and the children would have grown up to be self dependent and that the requirements of widowed mother and widow would have lessened and having regard to the age of the deceased and the surrounding circumstances commensurate with his status and weary of the fact that the Courts should be cautious to accept such income on the fact of it and the arguments of Shri Yash Pal Bansal, Advocate for the Civil Writ Petition No.7218 of 2011 4 respondents that the land owned by the deceased is still with the claimants and must be giving some output and which fact could not be controverted by Shri Navjot Singh Wahniwal, Advocate for the claimants and therefore, by some amount of guess work and hypothetical calculations and in all probabilities, this Tribunal assess the income of the deceased at Rs.20,000/- per month and out of which the deceased must be spending Rs.7,000/- on his own upkeep and maintenance and in all likelihood must be contributing Rs.13,000/- per month for the running of household and upkeep and maintenance of three children, a wife and an aged mother and, therefore, the annual dependency computes to Rs.1,56,000/-. Keeping in view the age of the deceased and the relative age of the claimants, status of the family and the surrounding circumstances, the multiplier of “12” will be most appropriate and by applying this multiplier the amount of compensation payable to the claimants comes to Rs.18,72,000/-(1,56,000/- x 12=18,72,000/-).” 8. Meaning thereby, the Tribunal has taken into consideration and appreciated the entire relevant evidence brought on record by the claimants in the right perspective. Having scanned the admissible evidence in relation to the pleadings of the parties, the Tribunal has rightly awarded the adequate compensation to the miserable claimants. Such award, containing the valid reasons, cannot legally be set aside, in exercise of writ jurisdiction of this Court, unless the same is perverse and without jurisdiction. As, no such patent illegality or legal infirmity has been pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioner- Insurance Company, therefore, to me, no cogent ground, to again scratch the wounds of unfortunate and helpless claimants, is made out. Hence, the impugned award(Annexure P-1) is hereby maintained in the obtaining circumstances of the case. 9. In the light of aforesaid reasons, as there is no merit, therefore, the instant writ petition is hereby dismissed as such. April 27, 2011 (MEHINDER SINGH SULLAR) seema JUDGE