JUDGMENT

Dipak Misra, J.-Leave granted.

2. Despite many a pronouncement in the field, it still remains a challenging situation warranting sensitive as well as dispassionate exercise how to determine the incalculable sum in calculable terms of money in cases of personal injuries. In such assessment neither sentiments nor emotions have any role. It has been stated in Davies v. Powell Duffryn Associate Collieries Ltd. [1942 AC 601] that it is a matter of Pounds, Shillings and Pence. There cannot be actual compensation for anguish of the heart or for mental tribulations. The quintessentiality lies in the pragmatic computation of the loss sustained which has to be in the realm of realistic approximation. Therefore, Section 168 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for brevity ‘the Act’) stipulates that there should be grant of “just compensation”. Thus, it becomes a challenge for a court of law to determine “just compensation” which is neither a bonanza nor a windfall, and simultaneously, should not be a pittance.

3. In Jai Bhagwan v. Laxman Singh and others [(1994) 5 SCC 5], a three-Judge Bench of this Court, while considering the assessment of damages in personal-injury- actions, reproduce