Motor Accidents: Claimant Deprived Of Full Pension Of Her Husband Entitled To Compensation For Loss Of Earnings, Holds Allahabad High Court

"The Tribunal ought to have considered the fact that had her husband survived, she would have got a sum of Rs.28,000/- per month which has now been halved," Justice Dr. Kaushal Jayendra Thaker remarked.

In effect, it has been held that a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal cannot say that since the claimant is receiving 'family pension', there is no loss of income. It has to be seen that if not for the fatal accident of her husband, the claimant would receive the full sum.

Background

The development comes in a civil appeal filed by one Subhadra Pandey against the order of Additional District Judge, MACT, Kanpur, awarding a sum of Rs.70,000/-with interest at the rate of 7% as compensation.

Advocate Vidya Kant Shukla, appearing for the appellant submitted that the deceased husband was 62 years of age at the time of accident and the claimant was the sole surviving legal heir. The deceased was a retired railway employee and was getting pensions. After his demise, the pension was halved and the appellant was getting Rs. 14,000/- which shows that she lost Rs.14,000/- because of the accident.

The grievance was that the MACT "very strangely" held that since the deceased was getting Rs. 28,000/- as pension, 50% of the same would be spent on the deceased himself and the remaining 50% would be the monthly datum figure available to the widow.

By this reasoning, the Tribunal held that the claimant was still getting the said 50% pension amount and hence, there was no loss to her. Accordingly, it did not award any amount under the head of loss of earnings and deducted the entire amount granting only Rs.70,000/- with 7% rate of interest.

The Appellant had relied on the decisions of the Apex Court in Ramilaben Chinubhai Parmar & Ors. v. National Insurance Co. Ltd. & Ors., 2014 ACJ 1430, and submitted that the deduction of provident fund, pension and insurance receivable by claimants is deprecated.

The Respondent on the other hand submitted that pecuniary advantage is a different issue and the said judgment would not apply to the facts of this case.

Findings

The High Court was of the opinion that even if it goes by the principles of loss of dependency as propounded by the Apex Court and the High Courts, the Tribunal ought to have considered the fact that had the Appellant's husband survived, she would have got a sum of Rs.28,000/- per month which has now been halved.

It held,

"In view of the decision of this Court in First Appeal From Order No.3154 of 2013 (Regional Manager, UPSRTC Vs. Smt. Nisha Dubey and others), no deduction from the pension is allowed. In this case the Tribunal has not granted any amount leave apart deduction from family pension."

The Bench thus proceeded to calculate the compensation payable to the Appellant as thus:

The multiplier applicable would be '7' as the deceased was in the age bracket of 61-65 years. (See Sarla Verma v. Delhi Transport Corporation, (2009) 6 SCC 121)

Even if the rough datum figure is considered, it can be considered to be Rs.5000 x 12 x 7 = 4,20,000/- plus Rs.70,000/- plus 10% increase in every three years namely Rs.7,000/-. Hence, the total compensation would be Rs.4,97,000/-.

As far as the issue of rate of interest is concerned, the Court held, it should be 7.5% in view of the latest decision of the Apex Court in National Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Mannat Johal & Ors.

"Hence, amount of Rs.4,97,000/- with interest at the rate of 7.5% from the date of the filing of the claim petition till the amount is deposited be paid to the claimant," the Bench concluded.

Case Title: Subhadra Pandey v. Siddharth Agrawal & Ors.

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