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Judgment
Deepak Gupta, J.—By means of this petition, the Petitioner-insurance company has challenged the award dated 30.11.2010, passed by the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Shimla awarding a sum of Rs. 4,80,000/- to the claimants for the loss of their only son in a motor vehicle accident.
The only point raised in this petition is that the compensation awarded by the learned Tribunal is highly excessive. At the outset, it may be stated that in proceedings under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, this Court can only interfere, if the award is perverse or fraudulent. Otherwise, the embargo placed by the legislation on the insurance company with regard to filing of the appeal will be set at naught by using the supervisory powers to interfere in every case.
As far as the present case is concerned, admittedly the deceased was drawing a salary of Rs. 4,400/- per month. There is some dispute with regard to other earnings of the deceased. In some documents, the other emoluments are shown to be the earning by way of traveling allowance, whereas the witness who appeared in the witness box/Court stated that this was a daily allowance. Whether it is taken as traveling allowance or daily allowance, if the total emoluments are taken into consideration, the earning would be much higher but the learned Tribunal has only taken the earning of the deceased at Rs. 6,000/- per month. Keeping in view the young age of the deceased, his future prospects and the fact that in addition to salary, he would get some incentives and allowances also, the learned Tribunal has not erred in fixing the salary of the deceased at Rs. 6,000/- per month.
Another dispute raised in this petition is that the learned Tribunal has wrongly taken the dependency of the parents at 2/3rd, whereas it should have been 1/3rd. Mr. Jagdish Thakur, learned Counsel for the Petitioner has placed reliance on the case titled Smt. Sarla Verma and Others Vs. Delhi Transport Corporation and Another, Mr. B.S. Kanwar, learned Counsel for the Respondents No. 1 and 2 has drawn my attention to a later judgment of the Apex Court in case titled Mohd. Ameeruddin and Anr. v. United India Insurance Company Limited and Anr. (2011) 1 SCC 304 wherein in the case of the deceased who was aged 20 years and the claimants were the parents, the learned Apex Court has deducted 1/3rd towards the personal expenses of the deceased. From the facts of this case, at the outset, it may be stated that the Apex Court has not laid down any law in this case and it has just held that 1/3rd should be deducted for the personal expenses of the deceased. It is apparent from the facts of this case that in that case the deceased belonged to the lower strata of the society. In any event the Apex Court, in Sarla Verma''s case (supra), by a reasoned judgment, has stated that normally in the case where the parents are the claimants, 50% should be deducted towards the personal expenses. The exception carved is where there are large number of persons who were dependent upon the deceased or where it can be said that the parents are totally dependent upon the deceased. In the present case the father of the deceased is a government servant and it cannot be said that the father is dependent upon the deceased. Therefore, at least 50% should have been deducted for the personal expenses which would mean that the datum figure would be Rs. 3,000/- per month.
However, the multiplier used by the learned Tribunal is again not in consonance with Sarla Verma''s case (supra). The learned Tribunal has used the multiplier of 10, whereas in the present case both the parents were aged between 46 to 50 years at the time of the accident. Thus the relevant multiplier would be of 13. The end result is that the amount would be almost the same.
Therefore, I find that the award of the learned Tribunal does not call for any interference, though for different reasons. Hence, the petition is rejected. No costs.