Mohd. Ameeruddin
& ANR. Vs United India Insurance Co. Ltd. & ANR.
JUDGMENT
Aftab Alam, J.
This is the claimants'
appeal by grant of special leave arising from a motor accident claim case. The
appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated July 28, 2004, passed
by the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Civil Miscellaneous Appeal No.2081 of2004. By
the impugned order, the High Court partly allowed the appeal filed by the
Insurance Company (the respondent herein) and reduced the amount of
compensation awarded by the Tribunal under the head "loss of earnings"
from Rs.5,00,000/- to Rs.2,60,000/-. The appellants' son namely, Aslamuddin died
in a motor accident on October 22, 1997. He worked as a Cleaner on the lorry tanker
that met with the accident. His parents, the present appellants filed a claim
application (O.P. no.954 of 1997) before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (Additional
District Judge), Nizamabad claiming Rs.5,00,000/- as compensation for his death.
Before the Tribunal, the proceedings were held ex parte against the owner of
the tanker but the respondent, the insurer of the vehicle appeared and resisted
the claim of the appellants.
The Tribunal found
that the accident took place due to rash and negligent driving by the driver of
the tanker. It further found that at the time of death Aslamuddin was aged 20
years. He was getting a salary ofRs.2,500/- per month besides `batta' (daily
allowance) at the rate of Rs.50/-. His monthly earning, thus, came to
Rs.4,000/- that is to say Rs.48,000/- per annum. After deducting 1/3rd towards
the personal expenses of the deceased, his net contribution to the claimants
was held to be Rs.32,000/- per annum. The Tribunal further noticed that at the time
of death Aslamuddin was unmarried and the age of his mother - claimant No.2was
40 years. It, therefore, took the age of the mother of the deceased for the
purpose of assessing compensation. Applying the multiplier of 16 on the basis
of the age of the mother of the deceased being 40 years, the Tribunal came to
the figure (Rs.32,000x 16) of Rs.5,12,000/-. However, since the claimants had
only made a claim of Rs.5,00,000/-, it awarded the slightly lesser amount as claimed
by the appellants. Against the judgment and order passed by the Tribunal, the Insurance
Company filed an appeal before the High Court, which, as noticed above, was
partly allowed.
For assessing the
monthly income of the deceased, the High Court took into account only the
monthly salary of the deceased and excluded the amount of daily allowance(Rs.50/-)
from consideration observing as follows: "However, the Tribunal has erred
in including batta of Rs.50/- per day, as a part of the salary and assessed the
monthly income of the deceased. Batta is not paid as a part of the salary, but
it is paid whenever there is work. It is now well settled that batta shall not
be calculated in the salary in assessing the income of the deceased." The
High Court further observed that the proper multiplier, appropriate to the age
of the mother of the deceased in terms of the ratio laid down by this Court in
General Manager, Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, Trivandrum v. Susamma
Thomas, (1994) SCC176, is 13. Thus, multiplying Rs.30,000 by 13, the High Court
arrived at the figure of Rs,3,90,000/- and taking away from it 1/3 rd towards
the personal expenses of the deceased held that the loss of dependency of the
claimants would be no more than Rs.2,60,000/-under the head "loss of
future earnings".
We are unable to
appreciate the view taken by the High Court on both counts. First, there was no
evidence that the daily allowance of Rs.50/- was not paid to the deceased every
day or even that he was not on work on every day of the month. On the contrary,
there is evidence on record that apart from the monthly salary ofRs.2500/- he
was getting Rs.50/- as daily allowance. We, therefore, hold that the Tribunal
was right in assessing the monthly income of the deceased at Rs.4,000/-. Coming
now to the question of multiplier, in light of the decision of this Court in Sarla
Verma v. Delhi Transport Corporation, (2009) 6 SCC 121, 18 would be the proper
multiplier where the age of the deceased is between 15 and 25 years and 15where
the age is between 36 and 40 years. The Tribunal has taken the age of the mother
for determining the amount of compensation, and, therefore, the proper
multiplier in this case would be 15 and on applying the said multiplier, the figure
would come toRs.4,50,000/-. We, accordingly, fix the amount of compensation receivable
by the appellants under the head "loss of earnings" at Rs.4,50,000/-.
The rest of the award made by the Tribunal and affirmed by the High Court
remains unmodified. Needless to say that the differential amount would carry interest
at the rate of 9% per annum from the date of the application till the date of
payment. In the result, the appeal is allowed but with no order as to costs.
......................................J.
(Aftab Alam)
......................................J.(R.M.
Lodha)
New
Delhi;
November
18, 2010.
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