Uttami Bai and Another vs Sukh Chain and Others

Usha Mehra, J.

(1) Uttami Bai & Ors. have comes up in this Court by way of this appeal against the order of the Motor Accidents ClaimsTribunal, Delhi dated 8th October, W5. The Tribum has awarded a sum of Rs. 12,750.00 as compensation on account of the death of deceased.Sardar Ujjagar Singh was husband of petitioner No. 1 and father of petitioners 2 to 5. During the pendency of this appeal. Uttami Bai died.Since the legal heirs were all ready on record, the amended memo of parties was allowed to be filed.

(2) The short point in controversy between the parties is that the Tribunal has misread the statement of Public Witness 10 while arriving at the age of the deceased and has misread the statement of the witnesses with regard to the income of the deceased. According to the petitioner, the age of the deceased at the time of his death was 55 years and his income was Rs. 400.00p. m. The Tribunal took the age of the deceased to be 61 years instead of55 years and has applied the multiplier of 9 instead of 15. The Tribunal has taken the expectancy of life to be 70 years and Therefore, applied the multiplier of 9. Since the age of the deceased proved on record is 55 years.the multiplier would have been of 15 years and not 9 years and there is no justification to apply the deduction of 50% when the income was hardlyRs. 400.00 p.m. and there were five dependants on him,

(3) In brief the facts of the case are that Sardar Ujjagar Singh met with an accident on 29/10/1968 at about !.15 p.m. on Chowk Maurice Nagar. The offending vehicle was being driven by Shri Sukh Chain,respondent No. 1, the driver. The owner of the offending vehicle is Shri Gulzari Lal Kapoor, respondent No. 2 and the said vehicle was insuredwith respondent No. 3. So far as the negligence is concerned, which is attributed to respondent No. 1 .there is no dispute of the same. As I have already pointed out above, it is only with regard to the dependency and the age of the deceased which is in controversy. The accident is not disputed.The death is not disputed. The negligence on the part of respondent No. 1 is also not in dispute. Therefore in order to decide the short point regarding the compensation, the Tribunal has relied on the testimony ofP.W. 10 i.e. Punnu Ram. I am afraid the Tribunal has misread his statement as rightly pointed out by Mr. 0. P. Goyal, Counsel for the petitioner. Punnu Ram appeared in the witness box on 11/04/1974and stated that in 1974 he was 62 years and the deceased was five or six months elder or younger to him. Meaning thereby if the deceased had been alive as on April, 1974, he would have been of 61 years but unfortunately Ujjagar Singh died in 1969 i.e. five years before April, 1974. Therefore as on the date of accident 29/10/1969, he had to be 55 years and not61 years as held by the Tribunal. The Tribunal has mis-understood the statement of Punnu Ram, Public Witness 10. Punnu Ram stated his age in 1974 as62 years and not in the year 1969, and Therefore, the petitioner is right when he contended that the Trial Court misconstrued the statement of PunnuRam. All the three witnesses i.e. Public Witness Ii, wife of the deceased Uttami Bai,P. W. 5 Baldev Raj and P. W. 10 Punnu Ram, have stated that the deceased was 55 years old at the time of his death. There is no rebuttal to that nottrialCourt there is any cross examination on this point. Therefore, I hold that the trial Court erred in arriving at the conclusion that the age of the deceased was 61years. In fact from the unrebutted and uncontroverter evidence available on record it can safely be held that the deceased was 55 years old at the time of his death. The Tribunal has taken the life expectancy to be 70 years which is as per the law laid down by the Apex Court. Since I have held that the deceased died at the age of 55 years the multiplier of 15 years has to be applied in this case and not 9 years.

(4) So far as the income of the deceased is concerned, there is a consistence in the statements of various witnesses namely the wife of the deceased (Smt. Uttami Bai), Baldev Raj (P. W. 5) and that of Punnu Ram(P.W.I 0). All of them stated that the deceased was earning Rs.400.00 to500.00 per month. I think there is a typographical error in the statement of Punnu Ram. instead of typing Rs. 5.000.00 p. m. it has been typedRs. 500.00 p.m. There is not even a suggestion to any of these witnesses that the deceased was earning less than Rs. 400.00 to Rs. 500.00 p.m. Their statements on the point of his monthly income have remained uncontroversial and unchallenged on record. The petitioner in its petition has claimed that the deceased was earning Rs. 400.00 per month. Therefore the Tribunal ought to have held that the income of the deceased was Rs. 400.00 instead ofRs. 300.00 p. m. as .held by the Tribunal. Moreover deceased with five dependents on him could not have kept more than Rs. 100.00 p.m. on his personal expenditure. Thus the net income would come to Rs. 300.00 per month which according to Uttami Bai, the wife of the deceased, he was giving to the family. After all he had two sons and two daughters and awife. so naturally he must be giving major portion of his income to hisfamily. It is nobody''s case that deceased was indulging in any vices. Hence his personal expenses could not be more than Rs. 100.00 p.m. Thus the pecuniary loss to the family would be Rs. 300.00 per month i.e. Rs. 3,600.00per annum and applying the multiplier of 15 years it comes to Rs. 54,000.00The Trial Court has also deducted 10% for acceleration of interest and 15%for lump sum payment and uncertainty of life./ I think the end of Justice will be met if instead of deducting 25�/o only 10% is deducted on account of acceleration of interest and on account of lump sum and uncertainty of life and after deducting that, the net amount which becomes payable to the petitioner comes to Rs. 35,850.00 and this I hold as a compensation which the petitioners are entitled to recover from the respondents jointly or severatly.The respondents have already paid a sum of Rs. 17.750.00 i.e. the award given by the Tribunal. The petitioners are entitled to recover the balance amount and also the interest at the rate of 6�/o p. a from the date of application till realisation.