Anita Devi and Ors. v. Satyendra Narain Singh and Ors.

Dr. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J. 1. Leave granted.

¶2Challenge in this appeal is to the order passed by a Division Bench of the Jharkhand High Court, Ranchi dismiss-ing the Miscellaneous application filed by the appellants under Section 173(1) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (in short the 'Act').

¶3Case of the appellants, in a nutshell, is as follows: Pramod Kumar (hereinafter referred to as the 'deceased') died in a vehicular accident in which Maruti.Van bearing regis-tration No.ER-14P-4320 was involved. The Maruti Van was be-ing driven by respondent No.1 rashly and negligently. Initially, Pramod Kumar had sustained grievous injuries. He was first taken to the GovernmentHospital from which he was referred to Bokaro General Hospital where he had expired on 18.4.2000. The deceased was 37 years of age. The petition for compen-sation in terms of Section 166 of the Act was filed by the dependants of the deceased. The Motor Accidents Claims Tri- .... 'Ir bunal (in short the 'MACT') on consideration of the materials placed before it held that claimants are entitled to compensa-tion of Rs.1,39,808/-. Since the vehicle was the subject matter of insurance, the Orients! Insurance Co. Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the 'insurer') was held liable for the compensation amount to the claimants alongwith interest @ 9% per annum from the date of filing of the application. It was.found that there is no con-crete material regardiflg the income of the deceased. How:.. ever, it was held that notional income of Rs.15,000/- p.a. can be taken after deducting certain amounts for personal use. The contribution was fixed at Rs.10,216/- p.a. The multiplier of 13 was applied and Rs.5,000/- was also granted for loss of expec-tation of life and Rs.2,000/- for funeral expenses. An appeal was preferred by the claimants questioning correctness of the r award, taking the stand that the quantum fixed was very low. High Court dismissed the appeal holding that there was no evi-dence of earning income.

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¶4In support of the appeal, learned counsel for the appel-. lant submitted that several documents were filed to establish the income of the deceased. This aspect was not taken note of either by the MACT or the High Court. .(_

¶5Learned counsel for the respondents submitted that the appellants did not produce any definite material regarding in-come and the MACT was justified in taking the notional income.

¶6To test the correctness of the stand of the appellants that several documents were filed to establish Jhe income of the deceased, the original records from MACT were called for. It appears from the records that certain documents have been filed. It is true that there are no copies of the income tax return or 'the assessment order. But the documents on record can cer-tainly throw light on the income aspect.

¶7Above being the position, we set aside the award of the MACT as affirmed by the High Court and remit the matter to MACT to consider the matter relating to income of the deceased and determine the compensation afresh taking into account the documents already on record.

¶8The appeal is allowed in the aforesaid extent with no order as to costs.

CIVILAPPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 4291 of 2008 --I From the final Judgment and Order dated 9.7.2004 of the

High Court of Jharkhand at Ranchi in M.A. No. 155/2003

Deba Prasad Mukherjee, Arvind Kr. Lall and Nandini Sen for the Appellants.

A.K. Raina and Dr. Kailash Chand for the Respondents.