UTTAMI BAI Vs. SUKH CHAIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Uttami Bai & Ors. have coms up in this Courtby way of this appeal against the order of the Motor Accidents ClaimsTribunal, Delhi dated 8th October, W5. The Tribum has awarded a sumof Rs. 12.750.00 as compensation on account of the death of deceased.Sardar Ujjagar Singh was husband of petitioner No. 1 and father ofpetitioners 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 partieswas allowed to be filed.

(2.) The short point in controversy between the parties is that theTribunal has misread the statement of Public Witness 10 while arriving at the age ofthe deceased and has misread the statement of the witnesses with regard tothe income of the deceased. According to the petitioner, the age of thedeceased 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 hastaken the expectancy of life to be 70 years and therefore, applied themultiplier 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 nojustification 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 metwith an accident on 29/10/1968 at about !.15 p.m. on ChowkMaurice Nagar. The offending vehicle was being driven by Shri Sukh Chain,respondent No. 1, the driver. The owner of the offending vehicle isShri Gulzari Lal Kapoor, respondent No. 2 and the said vehicle was insuredwith respondent No. 3. So far as the negligence is concerned, which isattributed to respondent No. 1 .there is no dispute of the same. As I havealready pointed out above, it is only with regard to the dependancy and theage of the deceased which is in controversy. The accident is not disputed.The death is not disputed. The negligence on the part of respondentNo. 1 is also not in dispute. Therefore in order to decide the short pointregarding the compensation, the Tribunal has relied on the testimony ofP.W. 10 i.e. Punnu Ram. I am afraid the Tribunal has misread hisstatement as rightly pointed out by Mr. 0. P. Goyal, Counsel for thepetitioner. 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 sixmonths elder or younger to him. Meaning thereby if the deceased had beenalive as on April, 1974, he would have been of 61 years but unfortunatelyUjjagar Singh died in 1969 i.e. five years before April, 1974. Therefore ason 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 thestatement 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 whenhe contended that the Trial Court mis-construed 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 deceasedwas 55 years old at the time of his death. There is no rebuttal to that northere is any cross examination on this point. Therefore, I hold that the trialCourt erred in arriving at the conclusion that the age of the deceased was 61years. In fact from the unrebutted and uncontroverted evidence availableon record it can safely be held that the deceased was 55 years old at the timeof his death. The Tribunal has taken the life expectancy to be 70 yearswhich is as per the law laid down by the Apex Court. Since I have heldthat the deceased died at the age of 55 years the multiplier of 15 years hasto be applied in this case and not 9 years.