Jageshwar Singh vs Mansoorul Haque and Others

Gurusharan Sharma, J.—In a motor accident on 14.3.1983, two persons, namely, Mahfooz Alam and Mahmood Alam lost their lives. They were respectively 23 and 21 years old. Their parents, aged about 54 and 52 years respectively filed Claim Case No. 10 of 1983, under the provisions of Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. (hereinafter referred to as ''The Act'').

According to claimants both the deceased were working as mechanic in a motor repairing workshop and were earning Rs. 3000/- per month, i.e. Rs. 1500/- each. In support of earnings claimants produced two receipts, which were marked as Exts. 7 and 7/1.

The Tribunal accepted aforesaid earnings and deducted amount of personal expenses of the two deceased and assessed annual dependency at Rs. 18000/- (Rs. 1500/- � 12) and thereafter applied 20 multiplier and calculated total sum of Rs. 3,60,000/- as compensation amount under the Act. Since claimants had claimed total compensation amount of Rs. 3,00,000/- only (Rs. 1,50,000/- each) the Tribunal directed payment of Rs. 3,00,000/- accordingly with interest @ 6% per annum.

Neither owner nor insurer of the vehicle in question contested the claim case, and it was decided exparte.

Tribunal came to conclusion, on the basis of materials on record that accident took place on account of rash and negligent drive of truck (BHM 4561), wherein two young full brothers lost their lives.

In my opinion, in absence of any, evidence in respect of amount personal expenditure of the two deceased persons-only 1/3rd of their earnings should have been deducted Rs. (1500/- (-) 1/3rd = Rs. 1000/-) and annual dependency should have been fixed at Rs. 12000/- each.

Further, maximum multiplier to be, used in respect of an accident, during the period, the 1939 Act was in force, was 16. In the present case, therefore, there was no occasion to apply multiplier of 20 Appropriate multiplier, considering age of both the deceased persons as well as their parents, who were claimants, in my opinion, should have been 9. So the total amount of compensation would be Rs. 1,08,000/- each with interest @6% (sic) annum from the date of filing of claim case till, payment.

Out of the total amount of compensation, the Insurance Company, as held by Tribunal, rightly was liable to indemnify only Rs. 50,000/- each with interest u/s 95(2)(b)(ii) of the Act, and rest amount was payable by owner of the vehicle.

Accordingly the claimants were entitled to get total Rs. 2,16,000/- with in-west, out of which Rs. 1,00,000/- with merest was payable by insurer and balance amount with interest by owner of the truck (BHM-4561).

With the aforesaid modification in he impugned award this appeal is disused of. However there shall be no order as to costs.