UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL A.O No. 146 of 2008 · Uttarakhand High Court

Heard Sri Mohd. Azim, learned counsel for the appellant, Sri Prabhat Pande, learned counsel for the respondent No. 2 and perused the record.

Learned counsel for the appellant has pressed this appeal only on the point of disability. He has submitted that 3 now the claimant/appellant is not able to perform his duty as a driver. He has further submitted that in order to support his case, the claimant has produced Dr. Rakesh Kumar Sundriyal, Orthopedic Surgeon as P.W.2 who has stated before the court below that the claimant cannot do the job of driving due to damage of his right hand and it is not possible for him to drive the vehicle, but the Tribunal failed the appreciate this evidence and has taken into consideration only 60% disability while awarding the amount of compensation.

After hearing learned counsel for the parties and scrutinizing the entire record available before me, I do not find any force in the submission advanced by learned counsel for the appellant. From the perusal of paper No. 26C/2, which is disability certificate, it reveals that the disability due to injuries sustained by the claimant, was 60% and the Tribunal in order to calculate the amount of compensation considered the disability certificate issued by the Chief Medical Officer, Udham Singh Nagar. Therefore, the Tribunal on the basis of the disability certificate available on record has rightly taken into account 60% disability of the claimant/appellant. According to the claim petition, he was earning Rs. 3,500/- per month but he could not produce any document or witness, which may suggest that he was actually getting Rs. 3,500/- per month as salary. Therefore, the Tribunal adopted the notional monthly income of the deceased as Rs. 3,000/-. In this way, the annual dependency of the claimant comes to Rs. 36,000/-. As I have discussed above that the Tribunal rightly held that the claimant sustained disability upto 60%, hence, after adopting the above process the annual amount of compensation to be taken into account is Rs. 21,600/- (60/100 X 36000). At the time of accident, the claimant was about 50 years of age and the Tribunal adopted the multiplier 4 of (cid:145)11(cid:146) in order to calculate the amount of compensation and as such a sum of Rs. 2,37,600/- (21600 X 11) as compensation which was awarded by the Tribunal is quite reasonable. The Tribunal awarded a sum of Rs. 3,185/- towards medical treatment. Thus, the total amount of compensation comes to Rs. 2,40,785/- in favour of the claimant/appellant. The owner/respondent No. 1 (cid:150) Hans Raj also spent Rs. 7,526/- on the treatment of the injured and he is entitled to get this amount from the insurer. In this way, the total amount of compensation awarded against the United India Insurance Company comes to Rs. 2,48,311/-. I do not find any illegality in the impugned judgment and award. The amount of compensation awarded by the Tribunal is just and proper. The appeal lacks merit and is liable to be dismissed.