Nafr High Court
Case Details
-1- 2025:CGHC:12993 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR MAC No. 420 of 2020 1 - Punesh Gond S/o Suresh Thakur Aged About 20 Years 2 - Jayram S/o Suresh Thakur Aged About 10 Years 3 - Purnima D/o Suresh Thakur (wrongly typed as S/o) Aged About 16 Years No. 2 & 3 are minors represented Through Mother And Legal Guardian Smt. Dashoda Bai W/o Suresh Thakur 4 - Dashoda Bai W/o Suresh Thakur Aged About 43 Years 5 - Urmila W/o Kunwar Singh Aged About 60 Years All are R/o Village- Majgaon, Police Station- Sahaspur-Lohara, Tahsil- Sahaspur-Lohara, District- Kabirdham, Chhattisgarh ... Appellant (s) versus 1 - Leelaram Chandrawanshi S/o Holiram Chandrawanshi Aged About 20 Years R/o Village- Dhaneli, Police Station- Kunda, Tahsil- Pandaria, District- Kabirdham, Chhattisgarh.
Legal Reasoning
2 - I.C.I.C.I. Lombard General Insurance Company Through The Branch Manager, Commercial Building, First Floor, Devedra Nagar, Raipur, District- Raipur, Chhattisgarh ... Respondent(s) ___________________________________________________________ For Appellant (s) :
Legal Reasoning
Mr. Vishnu Sahu, Advocate on behalf of Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Sahu, Advocate BALRAM PRASAD DEWANGAN Digitally signed by BALRAM PRASAD DEWANGAN Date: 2025.03.24 10:35:12 +0530 -2- For Resp. No.1 : Mr. Vaibhav P. Shukla, Advocate For Resp. No.2 : Mr. Animesh Pathak, Advocate on behalf of Mr. Amrito Das, Advocate __________________________________________________________ S.B.: Hon'ble Shri Parth Prateem Sahu, Judge Judgment On Board 19/03/2025 1. Challenge in this appeal is to award dated 14.11.2019 passed by learned Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Kabirdham (CG) in Claim Case No.82 of 2018 whereby learned Claims Tribunal partly allowed the application filed under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short “Act of 1988”) and awarded total compensation of Rs.7,78,750/- to the claimants in a fatal accident case. 2. Facts relevant for disposal of this appeal are that on 22.07.2018 deceased Suresh Thakur along with his friends Dhanesh and Nanku Yadav was returning back to his home from village Chaknar on a motorcycle. At 7:45 pm when Dhanesh Sahu stopped the motorcycle on the roadside near Lakhatola turn ahead of Biroda Chowk to urinate and all the three persons were urinating, at the same time, non-applicant No.1 came from behind from Gandai side on a motorcycle bearing registration number CG 09/JF-2438 driving recklessly at a high speed and badly hit all the three persons who were urinating, due to which they sustained severe injuries. Suresh Thakur got serious head and ear injuries, who was immediately taken to Lohara Hospital by ambulance, where after first aid, seeing his serious condition, he was referred to District Hospital Kawardha, from where he was referred to Raipur Hospital. -3- While being taken to Raipur, Suresh Thakur died. An application under Section 166 of the Act 1988 was filed by the legal heirs of the deceased Suresh Thakur on account of his death in the motor accident seeking total compensation of Rs.18,000,00/- (eighteen lakh rupees) from non-applicants under various heads. It is pleaded in the claim application that the deceased was a healthy and strong person of 45 years, who used to earn Rs.500/- per day by doing agricultural labour work, with which he used to take care of the family. 3. Non-applicant No.1/driver and owner of offending vehicle submitted reply and resisted the claim. It was pleaded that deceased Suresh Thakur himself was responsible for the said accident. Deceased came in the middle of the road, due to which, the said accident occurred. Respondent No.1 was driving his motorcycle carefully and slowly and was having valid driving licence. On the date of the incident, the said vehicle was insured with non-applicant No. 02/Insurance Company, therefore, non- applicant No.2 / Insurance Company is responsible for any liability related to the said accident. 4. Non-applicant No. 2/ ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company has opposed the claim by submitting a reply. It was pleaded that on the date and time of the accident, the driver was not possessing valid driving licence, which is an essential requirement as per the insurance conditions. In case of violation of insurance conditions, the insurance company is not responsible for compensation. It is pleaded that non-applicant No.2/Insurance Company may be exonerated from the responsibility of paying compensation. -4- 5. Learned Claims Tribunal, on appreciation of pleadings and evidence brought on record by respective parties, held that Suresh Thakur died on account of motor accidental injuries due to rash and negligent driving of the offending vehicle by non-applicant No.1. Breach of insurance policy conditions were not found to be proved. Assessing annual income of the deceased as Rs.67,500/- per annum (Rs.5625/- per month), calculated and awarded total amount of compensation of Rs.7,78,750/ -. 6. Learned counsel for the appellants submits that learned Claims Tribunal erred in awarding meager amount of compensation. Learned Claims Tribunal has failed to properly assess the monthly income of the deceased overlooking the Schedule -’B’ appended to the Notification issued by the Commissioner wherein the income of ‘unskilled’ Labourer is fixed according to grade of city to be of Rs.8100/- per month. Learned Claims Tribunal has not awarded any amount towards parental consortium to appellants No. 1 to 3 and filial consortium to appellants No. 4 & 5. He submits that amount of compensation be suitably enhanced considering income of deceased as mentioned in the Notification. 7. Learned counsel for respondents submits that amount of compensation awarded is just and proper, which does not call for any interference. 8. 9. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the records of the case. In the case at hand it is undisputed that on 22.07.2018 in a fatal accident, Suresh Thakur suffered grievous injuries and succumbed -5- to death in the course of his treatment. It is also undisputed fact that the offending motorcycle bearing registration No.CG 09/JF- 2438 was insured with non-applicant no.2/ Insurance Company. It is also not in dispute that applicants/appellants No. 1 to 3 are the children and applicants/appellants No. 4 and 5 are wife and mother of the deceased- Suresh Thakur. Deceased- Suresh Thakur was engaged as agricultural labourer and as per the pleading made in the claim application, his per day income was Rs.500/-. 10. So far as the income of deceased is concerned, learned Claims Tribunal considering that the claimants failed to produce any documentary evidence with respect to income of the deceased has notionally assessed the monthly income of deceased as Rs.4,500/- considering him to be an unskilled labourer. During the course of hearing, learned counsel for appellants placed a copy of Notification issued by the Labour Commissioner & Competent Authority, under Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Kabirdham for perusal of this Court which prescribes wage of daily-paid employees. In this Notification, the Commissioner has categorized the employees in three categories i.e. ‘un-skilled’, ‘semi-skilled’, ‘skilled’ and ‘high skilled’ and prescribed the wages for the period from 01.04.2018 to 30.09.2018. The wage for unskilled labourers has been fixed at Rs. 8100/- per month. 11. Accordingly, monthly income of the deceased is taken as Rs.8,100/- and since at the time of death, the deceased was 45 yeas old, therefore, in view of decision of Hon’ble Supreme Court in case of National Insurance Co. Ltd. Vs. Pranay Sethi & Ors. reported in (2017) 16 SCC 680, the income of the deceased is -6- required to be enhanced by 25% towards future prospects which comes to Rs. 10,125/- (8100 + 2025). Thus annual income of the deceased for the purpose of calculating compensation comes to Rs.1,21,500/- (10125 x 12). Out of this amount, ¼ is to be deducted towards personal and living expenses of deceased and after deducting ¼, annual loss of dependency would come to Rs. 91,125/- (1,21,500- 30,375). By applying multiplier of 14, as applied by the Claims Tribunal, to annual loss of dependency, total loss of dependency would come to Rs. 12,75,750/- (91,125 x 14). As the learned Claims Tribunal failed to award any amount towards parental consortium to appellants No. 1 to 3 (children) and filial consortium to appellant No. 5 (mother), therefore, this Court finds it appropriate to award an amount of Rs. 40,000/- to appellants No. 1 to 3 each being children of the deceased towards parental consortium and Rs. 40,000/- to appellant No. 5 (mother) towards loss of filial consortium as held by Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Pranay Sethi (supra) and Magma General Insurance Co. Ltd. Vs. Nanu Ram alias Chuharu Ram & Ors. reported in (2018) 18 SCC 130. Appellants are also entitled to get a sum of Rs.15000/- towards loss of estate and Rs.15,000/- for funeral expenses. Likewise, appellant No.4/wife is also entitled for a sum of Rs.40,000/- towards spousal consortium, as awarded by the Claims Tribunal. Thus, the total amount of compensation comes to Rs.15,05,750/- (12,75,750 + 1,20,000 + 40,000 + 15,000 + 15,000 + 40,000/-). Now the appellants shall be entitled to get total compensation of Rs.15,05,750/-. Aforementioned amount of compensation shall carry interest @ 7.5% per annum -7- from the date of filing of claim application till its realization. Other conditions of impugned award shall remain intact. Any amount already paid to claimant-appellant as compensation shall be adjusted from the total amount of compensation as calculated above.
Decision
12. In the result, appeal is allowed in part. Impugned award is modified to the extent as indicated herein above. Sd/- (Parth Prateem Sahu) Judge Balram