Case: New India Assurance Co.Ltd Vs. Gopali

4. Nanag Ram died in a road accident which occurred on 9.3.1992 when his motorcycle was struck by a truck owned by respondent No.10- Ram Chandra Paliwal and driven by Raghu Nath, whose name was deleted from the array of parties vide order dated 2.4.2009. At the time of accident, Nanag Rams age was about 36 years and he was employed as a Machine Operator in National Engineering Company Ltd., Jaipur for a salary of Rs.4,000/- per month.  5. The dependants of Nanag Ram filed a petition under Section 166 of the Act for award of compensation to the tune of Rs.24 lakhs by alleging that their bread winner had died due to rash and negligent driving of the truck by Shri Raghu Nath. While the owner of the truck and its driver did not file a reply to contest the claim petition, the appellant raised all possible objections. In the reply filed on behalf of the appellant it was prayed that the claimants be directed to prove whether the driver of the offending vehicle was in the employment of the owner and had a valid and effective driving licence. The appellant also sought a direction to the owner for production of the original insurance policy and, as is usually done in such cases, it claimed that the accident was not caused due to rash and negligent driving of the truck. An alternative plea taken by the appellant was that if an award is passed, the contributory negligence of both the drivers be determined.  6. After considering the pleadings and evidence of the parties, the Tribunal held that the accident was caused due to rash and negligent driving of the truck. The Tribunal also accepted the claimants assertion that the deceased was employed as a Machine Operator in National Engineering Company, Jaipur. The Tribunal then referred to the evidence produced by the claimants on the issue of monthly income of the deceased and held that it could be taken as Rs.3,000/- per month. After deducting 1/3rd towards personal expenses and applying the multiplier of 10, the Tribunal concluded that the claimants are entitled to total compensation of Rs.2,55,000/- with interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum w.e.f. 5.9.1992.  7. The learned Single Judge of the High Court took cognizance of the fact that the employer was annually paying bonus to the deceased at the rate of 20 per cent of his salary, referred to the judgment of this Court in General Manager, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation v. Susamma Thomas (1994) 2 SCC 176  and held that the claimants are entitled to total compensation of Rs.6,45,300/-. The learned Single Judge made additions of small amounts towards pains and sufferings, loss of love and affection, consortium, security and protection and directed the appellant to pay an additional amount of Rs.4,85,000/- with interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum.  8. The special appeal filed by the appellant was dismissed by the Division Bench of the High Court by relying upon Section 100A of the Code of Civil Procedure.  9. On 23.7.2007, this Court ordered notice on the special leave petition and indirectly stayed the judgment of the learned Single Judge of the High Court. For the sake of reference that order is extracted below:Issue notice.  Without prejudice to the claims involved, let the petitioner deposit a sum of Rupees three lakhs with the concerned MACT within four weeks from today. A sum of Rupees two lakhs shall be permitted to be withdrawn by the claimant without furnishing security10. As is the fate of large number of other special leave petitions, this petition was not listed before the Court for next five years for effective hearing and the appellant continued to enjoy the benefit of ex-parte interim order. For the first time, the case was listed before the Registrar on 15.10.2008 i.e. after almost one year and three months of the issue of notice. The Registrar noted that notice has not been served upon respondent Nos. 1 to 8 and 10 and an application has been filed for deleting respondent No. 9 from the array of parties. On 2.4.2009, the application was allowed by the Chamber Judge. For next two years and five months, the file of the case did not see the light of the day. On 14.9.2011, the case was listed before the Registrar, who recorded the statement of the appellants counsel that he does not want to bring on record the legal representatives of respondent Nos. 1 and 3. On 12.10.2011, the matter was again listed before the Registrar, who directed that the matter be placed before the Chamber Judge. When the matter was listed before the Chamber Judge, he noted that the legal representatives of respondent Nos. 1 and 3 are already on record. It should be a matter of concern for those who are associated with this institution as to why an ex- parte interim order passed by the Court should continue to operate for years together without the matter being listed for effective hearing. If the claimants had been members of economically affluent sections of the society, they would have engaged an eminent advocate and taken steps for hearing of the matter at an early date but, as noted earlier, they do not have the financial capacity and resources to engage any advocate for contesting the special leave petition.

Court's reasoning:
12. In our view, the appellants challenge to the impugned order is meritless and the appeal is liable to be dismissed. We are also convinced that this is a fit case in which the Court should exercise power under Article 142 of the Constitution and enhance the compensation determined by the High Court by applying appropriate multiplierhold that the learned Single Judge of the High Court did not commit any error by not following the rule of 1/3rd deduction towards the personal expenses of the deceased21. We are also of the view that the High Court was justified in determining the amount of compensation by granting 100% increase in the income of the deceased. In the normal course, the deceased would have served for 22 years and during that period his salary would have certainly doubled because the employer was paying 20% of his salary as bonus per year22. The issue which remains to be considered is whether the Tribunal and the High Court committed an error by applying the multiplier of 1024. It is not in dispute that at the time of accident, the age of the deceased was 36 years. Therefore, the Tribunal and the High Court were not right in applying the multiplier of 10. They should have adopted the multiplier of 15 for the purpose of determining the amount of compensation