K ANNAJI RAO Vs. MD JABOAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The parents of one Srikanth (the deceased) who died in a road accident, filed OP No. 1035 of 1999. His widow and minor daughter filed OP No. 1196 of 1999 seeking compensation in connection with his death. The Tribunal .clubbed both the claim petitions and assessed the compensation payable to the claimants in both the petitions. It observed by the Tribunal that the claimants in the petitions would have been entitled to more compensation than claimed but restricted the compensation to the amount claimed by them namely three lakh rupees and seven lakh rupees respectively. Contending that they are entitled to higher compensation than three lakh rupees as awarded by the Tribunal the claimants in OP 1035 of 1999 filed the present appeal.

(2.) The Registry took an objection as to maintainability of the appeal because entire amount claimed by the claimants was awarded by the Tribunal. That is how this unregistered appeal came before me.

(3.) The contention of the learned Counsel for the appellants is that since the Tribunal has power to award compensation which is just and reasonable, though the appellants claimed only three lakh rupees as compensation the Tribunal should have awarded compensation as arrived by it and called upon the appellants to pay the Court fee payable and was in error in restricting the amount of compensation to three lakh rupees only on the ground that they claimed only three lakh rupees. I am unable to agree with the contention of the learned Counsel for the appellants. An appeal is maintainable only by a person aggrieved. Person to whom the entire amount claimed is awarded cannot be said to be an aggrieved person. Merely because the Tribunal, while computing the compensation to which the claimants would have been entitled to held that they would have been entitled to higher compensation than claimed, a person cannot be said be aggrieved because it is always open to a person to restrict his claim. If a claimant after filing the O.P feels that he is entitled to more compensation than claimed should seek leave to amend his claim petition. If he does not think it fit to do so it is not the part of the duty of the Tribunal to award compensation as arrived by it and call on the claimant to pay the Court fees. In fact a Division Bench of this Court in L.P.A. No.5 of 1997, dated 13-1-2002 clearly held that Tribunal should not grant more compensation than that is claimed in the claim petition.