Allahabad High Court
State Of U.P. And Another vs Smt. Girija Devi And Others on 10 October, 2017
Bench: Amreshwar Pratap Sahi, Saral Srivastava
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?A.F.R.
Court No. - 37
Case :- FIRST APPEAL FROM ORDER No. - 2701 of 2008
Appellant :- State Of U.P. And Another
Respondent :- Smt. Girija Devi And Others
Counsel for Appellant :- Ravi Shanker Prasad
Counsel for Respondent :- Rajiv Nayan Singh,Ajay Singh
Hon'ble Amreshwar Pratap Sahi,J.
Hon'ble Saral Srivastava,J.
Heard learned Standing Counsel for the appellants as well as Sri Ajay Singh and Vikram Singh, learned counsels for the claimants.
The State of U.P. and the District Panchayat Raj Officer has come up in appeal questioning the correctness of the Motor Accident Claim award dated 30th May, 2008, whereby the tribunal has proceeded to award compensation in respect of an accident in which one Raj Kumar Verma died while driving a Jeep. The facts that emerge from the judgement are to the effect that the said accident took place when an unknown truck that was allegedly coming from the opposite side, hit the Jeep that was being driven by the deceased. This being a hit and run case, the claim petition was entertained and issues were framed pertaining to the cause of the accident and also the entitlement of the claimants to receive compensation. An FIR is also stated to have been lodged and the same has been discussed while deciding issue no. 1 by the tribunal where the conclusion drawn is that the unknown truck had hit the vehicle resulting in the accident causing injuries that were fatal for the deceased Raj Kumar Verma who died on the spot.
Learned counsel for the appellant has been unable to dislodge the said finding by any evidence that may have been led in this regard and therefore, the factum of accident, the involvement of the vehicle and the consequential death of the deceased remains unassailable.
The issue with regard to the deceased being a servant of the department has been found to be established and the tribunal has relied on Paper No. 84-Ga which was the service book of the deceased employee recording the salary that was received by him as Rs. 2640. He was aged 37 years at the time of his death and had been working in the department since 13th September, 1988. He had also been granted increments after having completed satisfactory services by the District Panchayat Raj Officer and consequently, the Tribunal found that he is working in a Government Department. The claimants had, therefore, established that they were entitled to receive compensation.
The appellants had raised a contention that the deceased driver had been driving the vehicle for his personal work and was not driving the vehicle for any official work, consequently, the claimants were not entitled for any compensation. The Tribunal has found that no evidence was led by the appellants to establish that the vehicle was being driven for any personal work by the deceased-driver, and to the contrary evidence was adduced by the claimants to the effect that the deceased driver occasionally come home late as he had to drop officials in the late hours of night. The Tribunal, therefore, in our opinion rightly believed this testimony and discarded the aforesaid defence of the appellant.
Coming to the issue of the quantum of compensation, the nature of the services that was being rendered by the deceased and his age, we do not find any error in the multiplier of 16 having been applied for calculating the compensation.
However, in the operative part of the decision relating to issue no. 3, we find that a deduction has been made by the Tribunal of a sum of Rs. 1,01,000/- from the awarded amount as the said amount had been received by the claimants as help from the department. Such deduction in our opinion, while awarding just and fair compensation was not permissible as it was an aid by the department. Consequently, even though, none of the grounds as raised by the appellants' merit any consideration, yet in view of this direction issued by the Tribunal, we modify the judgement and order dated 30th May, 2008 by providing that the deduction of Rs. 1,01,000/- shall stand reversed and the appeal stands disposed of accordingly with a direction to the Tribunal to disburse the said amount as well to the respondent-claimants.
It is stated by the learned counsel for the claimants that no amount has been paid so far to the claimants. The Tribunal is directed to pay the entire amount and disburse the same within three months from today together with interest as awarded by the Tribunal. In the event of non payment beyond the period of three months, the same rate of interest shall be carried and paid over to the claimants accordingly till the date of actual payment.
Accordingly, the appeal is disposed of subject to the directions and modification hereinabove.
Order Date :- 10.10.2017
Israr
