- (1.) The appeal has been brought before this Court on a remand from the Supreme Court on the observation that this Court, while allowing the appeal filed by the Insurance Company, has not delved into the reasons assigned by the Tribunal and substantially reduced the amount without finding any patent error in the award of the Tribunal. This Court while disposing of the case on 27.7.2010 was considering the following facts. The person that died was a bachelor aged 52 years. The claimant; was the mother who was 85 years of age. The Tribunal while assessing the compensation found on an evidence that he was drawing a pension of Rs. 15,000/- and therefore made an estimation that the contribution that could have been made to the mother could be about Rs. 6,000/-. Taking the extent of dependency at Rs. 6,000/- per month, the Court provided for a multiplier of 5 to determine a compensation of Rs. 3,80,000/- with interest at 9% as the amount payable to the mother of the deceased. It must be observed that when the Tribunal was disposing of the petition a further change of circumstance was that the claimant had died. The Insurance Company was therefore contending that the compensation could not have been determined merely taking the mother as the dependent and providing for the extent of dependency, without minding the fact that the mother had also died during the proceedings. The brothers and sisters of the deceased who had been brought on record were not shown dependents on the deceased at the time when the claim petition was presented. They had been impleaded as legal representatives of the mother but consequential compensation that was required to be decided was the extent of loss to estate which the claimants as representatives of the deceased mother could have asked for.
(2.) While determining the compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act, several heads of claims of compensation are provided. The predominant head of claim that constitutes the major portion is loss of dependency. The loss to estate of the deceased is but a minimal head and it is often referred to as a conventional head of claim. Schedule-II of the Motor Vehicles Act which prescribes for heads of claims as indicator for how the claim of compensation must be addressed provides a notional sum of Rs. 2,500/- as loss to estate which is possible in a claim under Section 163-A. The judicial approach, while answering the claim under Section 166 is not very different in the manner in which the Courts address the issue of compensation towards loss to estate. The judgment in Sarla Verma v. Delhi Road Transport Corporation, 2009 155 PunLR 22 refers to a loss to estate as a conventional head of claim. The assessment shall be made depending on the status of the parties and income saving propensity of the deceased. It must be therefore remembered that when the Tribunal was assessing compensation, the fact of death of the claimant-mother herself during the pendency of the proceedings could not have been lost sight of. An award which is passed in favour of a person who was not a dependent on the deceased but a legal representative for a deceased claimant could be assessed not for loss of dependency but only for loss to estate of the deceased victim and loss to estate of the deceased claimant. The situation ought to be therefore different in a case where a claimant is not an accident victim and dies not on account of an accident or injury but dies naturally before the conclusion of the adjudication.
(3.) The Tribunal failed to take notice of the relevance of the actual number of years of life that she herself lived subsequent to the death of the person whose death constituted the cause of action. In this case, the death of the son was on 2.9.2005. The mother of the deceased who had filed the petition had died in January, 2008. In fact the death had occurred even within three years from the death of her son. The Court had provided for a multiplier of assuming a certain number of years of living and since the actual death is never a human dispensation Courts adopt an approximation on the basis of average life span. Even the judgment of the Supreme Court in Sarla Verma's case that provides for suitable multipliers for various age groups assumes the life span to be 70 of a normal Indian. Consequently, the multiplier of 5 which is suggested is for an age group between 66 to 70. In this case, the deceased was 85 years of age. The claimant deceased had died prior to the conclusion of an adjudication. When the Court had applied a multiplier of 5, the Tribunal failed to note that it was not determining the loss of dependency of a deceased-claimant but it was determining a compensation to the brothers and sisters who had been impleaded as L.Rs of the deceased-claimant. This could not have been done by taking the choice of multiplier which was suitable to the mother, only, if she had been alive to take the award. If she had died after the award, the entire amount would have fallen to her estate. However, on her death before adjudication, her L.Rs could not have got if she had been alive. The mistake was therefore corrected by this Court by adopting a multiplier of 3 taking that to be the maximum multiplier for determining the estate of the deceased claimant. This involves an assumption that the entire amount of what she would have got during her life time should be provided to her heirs. Consequently there had to be a reduction of the value of the multiplier itself. I shall therefore take the loss to be 6,000 x 12 x 3 = 2,16,000/-. I will add also the component of loss to estate of the estate of the deceased victim at Rs. 2500/- and add Rs. 20,000/- already determined as funeral expenses and medical expenses. The total amount shall be Rs. 2,38,500/- as payable to the claimants, who were the L.Rs of the mother.;