Uttaranchal High Court: Sudhanshu Dhulia, J., allowed the appeal filed by the appellants against the award passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Rudrapur in MACT Case No. 153 of 2013, whereby compensation of Rs 3,00,000 was awarded to the claimants.
The facts of the case are that, Roshni, the daughter of the appellant, aged 12 years, died in an accident on a motorcycle. The appellant filed a claim petition and a compensation of Rs 6,00,000 was claimed on account of the death of Roshni. The MACT, keeping in view the age of the deceased Roshni as 12 years, fixed her annual notional income as Rs 20,000 as per Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The learned Tribunal thereafter applied a multiplier of 15 and calculated the amount of compensation to the tune of Rs 3,00,000. Aggrieved by the amount of the compensation, the appellants have filed the appeal before this Court.
In the instant case, the Court observed that pursuant to the amendment made in the year 1994 to the Act and after the various decisions of the Supreme Court from time to time, the annual notional income of a person who is a non-earning member has increased from Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000, which has to be considered by the Tribunal under the facts and circumstances of each case. Further, relying upon the precedents of Kishan Gopal v. Lala, (2014) 1 SCC 244 and Lata Wadhwa v. State of Bihar, (2001) 8 SCC 197, the Court held that the notional income of the girl child Roshni shall be fixed at the rate of Rs 30,000 per annum, which is appropriate. On this amount applying the multiplier of 15, the amount of compensation comes to Rs 4,50,000 with interest.[Parwati Devi v. Paramjeet Singh, 2019 SCC OnLine Utt 672, decided on 03-07-2019]
