Jharkhand High Court
Reema Devi @ Kiran Devi vs Sultan Ahmad Khan on 18 January, 2022
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI
Misc. Appeal No. 191 of 2012
1. Reema Devi @ Kiran Devi
2. Suraj Kumar, minor son of Late Sunil Kumar 'Pretam'
.... .... Appellants
Versus
1. Sultan Ahmad Khan
2. The Branch Manager, National Insurance Company Limited,
Jamshedpur, East Singhbhum
.... .... Respondents
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CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GAUTAM KUMAR CHOUDHARY
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For the Appellants : Mr. Prabhat Kr. Singh, Advocate
For the Respondents : M/s D.C. Ghose, Advocate
C.A.V. ON 07.01.2022 PRONOUNCED ON 18 /01/2022
1. The appellants are the claimants who have preferred the instant
appeal for enhancement of compensation amount awarded in Claim Case
No. 148/03 in which the judgment and award was passed by the 5th Dis-
trict & Sessions Judge-cum-Presiding Officer, MVACT, Hazaribagh un-
der Section 166 of the M.V. Act, 1988 for the death of Sunil Kumar 'Pre-
tam' in a motor vehicle accident.
2. Enhancement has been claimed mainly on the ground that it
was the definite case of the claimants that the deceased had a betel shop
and at the relevant time of accident he was transacting his business from
his shop when the offending vehicle rammed into the shop causing fatal
injury. It is further submitted that all the witnesses on the point of income
C.W.1-Krishna Sharma, C.W.2-Jamuna Sao, C.W.3-Abhishek Pankaj,
C.W.4-Reema Devi @ Kiran Devi have consistently stated that the de-
ceased had a monthly income of Rs.5000/- from the shop. The income as
deposed by the witnesses has not been accepted and instead the notional
income of Rs.2000/- per month has been considered by the learned Tri-
bunal without assigning any specific reason for not accepting the monthly
income as deposed by the witnesses. It is also stated that the income as
stated by the witnesses is not extravagant and not exaggerated. The com-
pensation has not been awarded under the head of future prospect. Re-
liance has been placed on National Insurance Company Limited Ver-
sus Pranay Sethi and others {(2017) 16 SCC 680} for award of compen-
sation under the head of future prospect.
Lastly, it has been submitted that under the conventional head
also the compensation amount has not been allowed and the interest is al-
so 6% with effect from the date when the last witness was discharged.
3. It is submitted by learned counsel for the Insurance Company
that the finding of fact recorded on the point of income of the deceased
cannot be disturbed only on bald statement of the witnesses deposed dur-
ing their examination in view of the fact that there was no documentary
evidence in support of their income. Learned Tribunal accepted the no-
tional income in the absence of any cogent evidence on income and it did
not commit any error by doing so. Further, it is submitted that the income
is to be seen as per the contemporary standards of time and when the acci-
dent took place Rs.2000/- was not a meagre earning.
4. At the outset it is stated that the learned Tribunal as the first
Court of fact is entitled to appreciate evidence as deposed to by witnesses
and is not bound to accept anything and everything as stated by the wit-
nesses. Though provisions of Evidence Act do not apply in its absolute ri-
gidity, but that does not mean that they have no application in proceeding
under Motor Accident Claim cases. The principles of proof under Section
3, consistency and contradiction in the statement of witnesses and the nat-
ural course of human conduct has to be considered while accepting or re-
jecting statement of a witness.
5. The matter for consideration is whether the Learned Tribunal
was in error to reject the evidence of witnesses on the point of income of
the deceased. Here, it is not in dispute that the deceased owned a betel
shop and was in his shop when the accident took place. Once the occupa-
tion of the deceased has been established that he had a betel shop which
was the principal source of his livelihood, assessing compensation on the
basis of notional income for non-earning person will not be the correct
approach.
All the witnesses have deposed that the income of the deceased
was Rs 5000/- per month. There cannot be exact assessment of monthly
income of persons engaged in such business and there cannot be any do-
cumentary evidence in that regard. The evidence has to be considered in
the backdrop of the nature of occupation and business, place of business,
whether it was in a rural area or in an urban area etc of the deceased. Re-
liance in this regard has been placed by the appellant on Chameli Devi
case, which is of not much help, since the deceased in that case was a car-
penter. The place of the betel shop which is the place of occurrence is si-
tuated at NH-33 near village Sidroal, P.S. Namkum, District Ranchi
which is not in the main city.
Taking into account overall facts and circumstance of the case a
monthly income of Rs.4000/- can be accepted of the deceased.
Taking Rs.4000/- as the monthly income the compensation
amount shall work out as per the table given below:
Annual Income Rs.48000/-
Annual dependency after deducting Rs.32000/-
1/3rd on the living and personal ex-
penses of the deceased
Taking multiplier of 17 considering Rs.32000 x 17 = Rs.5,44,000
the age of the deceased to be 30
years
Future Prospect @ 40% Rs.2,17,600
Conventional head Rs.77,000
Total Rs.8,38,600
The Insurance Company is liable to pay the total compensation
amount of Rs.8,38,600 with interest @ 7.5% per annum from the date of
application of the claim application to the claimants. The payment shall be
made within a month of the order to the Learned Tribunal. The amount re-
ceived shall be disbursed to the claimants by the Tribunal after proper
identification. Of the total amount, 70% shall be paid individually to the
claimant no.1 and the balance amount to be fixed deposited jointly in the
name of Claimant Nos. l and 2, till the claimant no. 2 attains the age of 21
years.
The appeal is allowed as at above.
(Gautam Kumar Choudhary, J.)
Jharkhand High Court, Ranchi
Dated the 18th January, 2022
NAFR / AKT
