SHOBHA RANI Vs. PUNJAB STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Shobha Rani and three others have filed this appeal under clause X of the Letters Patent seeking enhancement of compensation awarded to them on account of the death of Shobha Rani's husband Bhim Sen who died in a motor vehicle accident on 31.7.1989. The learned Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal had assessed Rs. 3,84,000 as compensation but reduced this amount by half on account of the contributory negligence of the deceased. The learned single Judge reversed the findings of contributory negligence but did not enhance the compensation which remained fixed at Rs. 3,84,000 as assessed by the Tribunal.

(2.) In this appeal, learned counsel for the appellant has argued that Bhim Sen was employed as Superintendent in Punjab and Haryana High Court on a monthly salary of Rs. 3,577. Tribunal had assessed the monthly dependency of the appellants at Rs. 2,000 and applied multiplier of '16' and thereby assessed the total dependency at Rs. 3,84,000. This had not been varied by the learned single Judge. According to the learned counsel if the unit system as relied upon by Hon'ble Supreme Court in U.P. State Road Trans. Corpn. v. Trilok Chandra, 1996 ACJ 831 (SC), is applied to the present case, the compensation payable to the appellants would be higher than what has been assessed by the Tribunal.

(3.) The submission of the learned counsel is quite a valid one because in cases where the deceased was a married man with a wife and children to support, it was very unlikely that he would be spending Rs. 1,577 out of his salary of Rs. 3,577 on himself making his family dependent upon him only to the extent of Rs. 2,000. It is felt by us that demands of growing children have been somewhat underestimated. Therefore, in assessing compensation the unit system works quite satisfactory. In a family of two adults and three minors, two units each are awarded to the adults and one each to the minor. Thereafter, the dependency is worked out in proportion to the unit awarded to the dependant. In the present case the family of the deceased had five units out of seven, two units belonged to the deceased himself. Therefore, the dependency of the deceased works out to 5/7th of Rs. 3,577 per month. This comes to Rs. 2,555 per month. The annual dependency comes to Rs. 30,660. The annual dependency multiplied by 16 gives us the figure of Rs. 4,90,560 (rounded off to Rs. 4,90,000). By applying the unit method the total dependency of the appellants works out to Rs. 4,90,000.