Nafees Ahmad & Ors. v. National Insurance Co. Ltd & Ors.

cases. The learned Tribunal after having considered the material available before it and hearing learned counsel for the parties allowed the claim petition, against the opposite party no. 1-National Insurance Company Limited, for a sum of Rs.2,40,000/-, as compensation, in favour of claimants. The Tribunal also directed that this amount of compensation is to be paid by opposite party no. 1-insurance company within a period of sixty days, failing which, the claimants shall be entitled to get an interest @ 6% per annum, on the awarded amount, from the date of filing the petition till the date of actual payment. Feeling aggrieved by the aforesaid judgment and award, the appellants-claimants have preferred the appeal before this Court. Heard Sri Z.U. Siddiqui, learned counsel for appellants and perused the record. None appeared for respondents. Learned counsel for the claimants-appellants has submitted that the claimants by cogent evidence had proved that the monthly income of the deceased was Rs.3200/-, but the Tribunal overlooked the evidence and without any basis, wrongly presumed the income of the deceased as Rs.2500/- per month. The learned counsel for the appellants, therefore, urged that the compensation awarded by Tribunal should be enhanced by this Court. After having considered the evidence on record, I do not find any force in the above 4 submission raised by learned counsel for the appellants. According to the claimants, deceased was unmarried at the time of accident, and therefore calculating amount compensation the age of the parents would be material. In the instant case the age of parents of the deceased were shown in claim petition as 50 years and 48 years respectively. As regards income of deceased at the time of accident, the claimants have come up with the case that the deceased had been earning Rs.2500/- per month. Besides this, the deceased also used to get Rs.700/-, but PW-3 has stated in his deposition that he used to get overtime according to need. Therefore, the Tribunal has not included that amount in the amount of salary which the deceased was receiving and assessed the monthly income of deceased at Rs.2500/- only. I do not find any infirmity in the findings recorded by the Tribunal in this regard. The Tribunal assessed the monthly income of deceased at Rs.2500/- and in this way the financial dependency of the claimants comes to Rs. 2500 x 12= Rs. 30000/- per annum and after deducting 1/3rd out of it towards personal expenses of the deceased, it comes to Rs. 20,000/- per annum. Keeping in view the age of the parents as well as financial dependency of the claimants, multiplier of (cid:145)11(cid:146) as has been adopted by the Tribunal appears to be just and adequate and after adopting the multiplier of (cid:145)11(cid:146), the financial dependency of the claimants comes to Rs. 20,000 x 11= Rs.2,20,000/- and the Tribunal also awarded Rs. 5000/- towards medical expenses, Rs. 5000/- towards funeral expenses and Rs.10000/- towards loss of love and affection and in this way, the Tribunal awarded 5 total amount of compensation of Rs. 2,40,000/-, which appears to be just and reasonable and the same does not require any interference. The interest as has been indicated in the award also does not require any interference. So far as the interest awarded by the Tribunal is concerned, the same requires slight modification by this Court. The Tribunal has directed the insurance company to deposit the amount of compensation within a period of sixty days from the date of passing the impugned award, failing which, interest @ 6% per annum shall be payable from the date of petition till the date of actual payment. In my opinion, in the interest of justice, the interest @ 6% per annum should be awarded on the amount of compensation, from the date of filing the petition till the date of actual payment. In view of above discussion the appeal is liable to be partly allowed. Accordingly, the appeal is partly allowed. The impugned judgment and award is modified to the extent that the appellants-claimants shall be entitled to get interest @ 6% per annum on the amount of compensation awarded by the Tribunal, from the date of filing the petition till the date of final payment, instead of conditional interest as has been awarded by the Tribunal. SP (B.C. Kandpal, J.)