SAIYADA SHAHIDA BONO Vs. RAMDHARI PD GUPTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD counsel for the appellants, counsel for the respondent-Insurance Company as also counsel for the respondent-Owner of the Vehicle. What would be the income or future prospective income of a qualified person to be taken into account for payment of compensation in case of death in an accident by motor vehicle has to primarily be decided in the light of the evidence on record, but then there can be also no rule of thumb that the moment such income is not proved in words and figures by the claimants, the tribunal must resort to fixed standard notional income. Counsel for the appellant has submitted that there is no consideration by the tribunal on the special features of the present case where admittedly life of the deceased, a young man of 24 years, having completed the degree in master of business administration was cut short on account of an unfortunate read accident. He would, therefore, submit that the tribunal had to consider the issue of future prospective earning capacity of the deceased especially when evidences were brought on the record to show that soon after completion of his M.B.A. course he had also been given first job offer from a private institution. Counsel for the appellant in this context had also placed reliance on few judgments to contend that normally the Courts have assessed even the income of a student undergoing specialized course on higher footing than an average literate person. In this context learned counsel has placed reliance on the Division Bench judgment of Madhya Pradesh High Court in the case of 'Tamarajdhwaj Dahayat & Anr Vs. Ramvaran Patel & Ors' reported in 2008 ACJ 2782 where income of a student of first year of BCA ( Bachelor of Computer applications) was assessed at Rs.4,000.00 per month. He has further placed reliance on the judgment of the Division Bench of Karnataka High Court in the case of 'H.S. Chetan Vs. Chandra Mouli & Anr' reported in 2008 ACJ 191 where the deceased on the verge of completion of his law degree with a plan to pursue legal profession was assessed of his earning capacity @ Rs. 7,000.00 per month. Yet again he has placed reliance on the judgment of Single Bench of Punjab and Haryana High Court in the case of 'Ratna Chaudhuri Vs. State of Haryana & Ors' reported in 2006 ACJ 2700 where prospective income of a third year MBA student was assessed at Rs. 8,000.00 per month.

(2.) MR . Ashok Priyadarshi, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Insurance Company on the other hand would submit that here in this case the issue of future earning capacity of the deceased was not raised because the claimants themselves had confined their claim by taking a plea of his fixed income @ Rs.

(3.) KEEPING all these thing into consideration, if this Court goes into evidence on record it would find that it is beyond the dispute that the deceased whose date of birth is 12th May, 1975 and had passed his matriculation examination in the second Division in the year 1989 having completed his MBA Course from the Bihar University in the first Division in the examination held in the month of May, 2002 had a prospect of being well placed in his life and in this context his aptitude of being a true qualified professional in life is also borne out from his training certificate of the Government of India Programme which was produced in evidence by the claimant petitioner before the tribunal. All these evidences, therefore, would go to show that the deceased had even capacity to get the job soon after completing his MBA course and that is why the offer of appointment as a sales representative in a Delhi Export Firm was in his pocket as would be apparent from letter dated 17th April, 2003 informing the deceased about his placement in the Company. True it is that the death came only 11 days after such offer of placement dated 17.4.2003 was issued and therefore at least there is no direct documentary evidence to show as to what was the salary offered to the deceased or whether he had even joined the said post. Though in oral evidence some of the evidence had claimed that he went to Delhi for joining the training in course of his placement in the Company, there being however nothing on the record by way of documentary evidence, this Court will have to go by the evidence on the basis of which it can only be held that the appellant was a qualified person having MBA degree and job offer was in his pocket and he met an accident before joining the assignment. If that be the consideration what would be the future prospect of earning or income of a qualified MBA in the year 2003.