ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co Ltd. vs Suriya Begum and Others

Reva Khetrapal, J.—By way of this appeal, the Appellant impugns the award of the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal dated 07.05.2010 passed in Suit No. 775/2008 whereunder the Respondent No. 1 was awarded the sum of ` 6,12,816/- alongwith interest at the rate of 7.5% per annum from the date of the filing of the petition till realization of the amount.

The claim in the above suit arose in the following factual background.

On 3rd October, 2006 at 5.30 a.m., a Tata Innova Car bearing registration No. DL-7CG-0779 ran into a TSR. The driver of the said TSR, Kamar Abbas aged 22 years, succumbed to the injuries sustained by him leaving behind him his parents, brothers and sisters. The father of the deceased Kamar Abbas, however, died during the course of the enquiry. Smt. Suriya Begum, the mother of the deceased, appeared in the witness box as PW-1 and also adduced the evidence of four other P Ws to prove the death of her son in the accident and in support for her claim for compensation to the damage caused to the TSR, for which a separate suit, being Suit No. 773/2008, was filed. Subsequently however, both the suits were clubbed together by order dated 05.04.2008.

A two-fold contention was raised by Ms. Suman Bagga, the learned Counsel for the Appellant to impugn the award in respect of which the present appeal has been filed:

(i) The learned Claims Tribunal wrongly deducted 1/3rd on account of personal expenses of the deceased, despite the fact that the Respondent No. 1, the mother of the deceased, was treated as the only legal heir.

(ii) The learned Claims Tribunal calculated the dependency of the Respondent No. 1 on the basis of minimum wages but erroneously added 50% of the minimum wages on account of future prospects.

Ms. Pooja Goel, the counsel for the Respondents No. 1 to 6, on the other hand, sought to support the award as a justified and proper one.

Adverting to the first contention of the learned Counsel for the Appellant that the learned Claims Tribunal wrongly deducted 1/3rd on account of the personal expenses of the deceased despite the fact that the Respondent No. 1/mother was treated as the only legal heir, the undisputed case of the parties is that the deceased was 22 years of age at the time of the accident and he left behind him, apart from his parents, three unmarried sisters and two minor siblings. It is also the undisputed case of the parties that the father of the deceased died during the pendency of the claim petition before the Tribunal, leaving behind the widowed mother of the deceased to shoulder the burden of five children, three of whom were girls of marriageable age, while the other two were children of a tender age. In such circumstances, in my view, no fault can be found with the finding of the Tribunal that the deceased had he been alive could hardly be expected to spend more than 1/3rd of his income towards his personal expenses and maintenance.

The Hon''ble Supreme Court in the case of Smt. Sarla Verma and Others Vs. Delhi Transport Corporation and Another, , while laying down the guidelines to be followed by the Courts while awarding compensation to the legal representatives of the deceased victim, made the following observations in respect of the deduction to be made where the deceased was a bachelor:

Where the deceased was a bachelor and the claimants are the parents, the deduction follows a different principle. In regard to bachelors, normally, 50% is deducted as personal and living expenses, because it is assumed that a bachelor would tend to spend more on himself. Even otherwise, there is also the possibility of his getting married in a short time, in which event the contribution to the parent/s and siblings is likely to be cut drastically. Further, subject to evidence to the contrary, the father is likely to have his own income and will not be considered as a dependant and the mother alone will be considered as a dependent. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, brothers and sisters will not be considered as dependents, because they will either be independent and earning, or married, or be dependant on the father. Thus even if the deceased is survived by parents and siblings, only the mother would be considered to be a dependant, and 50% would be treated as the personal and living expenses of the bachelor and 50% as the contribution to the family. However, where family of the bachelor is large and dependant on the income of the deceased, as in a case where he has a widowed mother and large number of younger non-earning sisters or brothers, his personal and living expenses may be restricted to one-third and contribution to the family will be taken as two-third.

In view of the aforesaid guidelines laid down in the case of Sarla Verma (supra), the deduction of 1/3rd of the income of the deceased towards his personal expenses appears to be justified. The deceased undoubtedly had a large family to support and had left behind him a widowed mother with five siblings. The contention of Ms. Bagga that even in such circumstances, half of the income of the deceased should have been deducted by the Tribunal towards his personal and living expenses is, therefore, without merit.

Turning now to the second contention of Ms. Bagga, that the learned Claims Tribunal erred in adding 50% of minimum wages on account of future prospects, there is no merit in this contention as well. The deceased was a young man aged 22 years and it is possible that his life expectancy in normal course would have extended to 70 years. Judicial notice has time and again been taken of the fact that the minimum wages prescribed by the Government of the National Capital of Territory from time to time are doubled within a period of ten years. In the present case, the learned Tribunal after discarding the statement of the Petitioners that the deceased was earning a sum of Rs. 200/- to Rs. 250/- per day had, in view of the fact that no income proof had been placed on record, assessed the income of the deceased on the basis of the minimum wages for a skilled workman at the relevant time, as the deceased was a driver and even at the time of the accident was driving a TSR. The minimum wages for a skilled workman on the date of the accident were in the sum of Rs. 3,736/- per month and to this amount the Claims Tribunal added the amount of Rs. 1,868/-, being 50% addition on the minimum wage on account of future prospects. There does not appear to be any cogent reason for this Court to interfere with the aforesaid finding of the Claims Tribunal, more so, as in Sarla Verma''s case (supra), the Hon''ble Supreme Court has held that as a rule of thumb an addition of 50% of actual salary to the actual salary income of the deceased towards future prospects is warranted where the deceased is below 40 years of age.

For the aforesaid reasons, there is no merit in the appeal. The award passed by the Claims Tribunal in the facts and circumstances of the case is fair and justified and no interference with the same is called for.

MAC. APP. 503/2010 and CM Nos. 13737/2010 and 21208/2010 are accordingly dismissed.