The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of the appropriate multipliers as provided under the Schedule to the Motor Vehicles Act in calculating compensation for motor accident victims.

ORDER :

Brijesh Kumar, J.

The abovenoted two appeals have been preferred separately by the dependent claimants of the deceased Narinder Kumar and Subhash Aggarwal who died in a motor accident, having taken place on 16-7-1992 while travelling by a Maruti van from Jalandhar to Delhi. The accident took place near Nilokhari with a truck which collided with the van in which the deceased and other members of the family were also travelling. Since both appeals arise out of the same accident and questions raised are also common to both, we have heard the appeals together and they are being disposed of by a common order.

2. The appellants in the two appeals being the dependants of the deceased persons preferred a claim petition before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Karnal. The family of Narinder Kumar consisted of his mother, his wife and six children, one of whom is a married daughter. The children at the relevant time were aged 4 to 20 years. Subhash Aggarwal, the other deceased, left behind his widow and two children. The parties adduced evidence in support of their cases on consideration whereof the Tribunal came to the conclusion that monthly income of both the victims was Rs. 6000 per month and on that basis assessed and awarded the compensation as to be indicated hereinafter.

3. So far as Narinder Kumar is concerned, it has been found that he was being paid a sum of Rs. 1500 per month out of the income from HUF business. His dependants, after his death, are being paid the same amount of Rs. 1500 per month. That amount was, therefore, deducted from the amount of total income of Narinder Kumar for the purposes of calculating the amount of dependency. Another amount of Rs. 1500 was deducted on account of personal expenditure of the deceased being one-third of the income. Therefore, the dependency amount arrived at was Rs. 3000 per month i.e. Rs. 36,000 per annum. The Tribunal applied the multiplier of 9 and awarded an amount of Rs. 3,24,000 with interest at the rate of 12 per cent from the date of the claim till the date of the payment.

4. So far as Subhash Aggarwal is concerned, in view of the fact coming on the record that his dependants are being paid a sum of Rs. 2000 per month out of the partnership business, the said amount was deducted from the amount of income for the purposes of arriving at the amount of dependency. The income was, thus, reduced to Rs. 4000. One-third amount was also deducted out of Rs. 4000 on account of personal expenditure of Subhash Aggarwal. The annual dependency amount at the rate of Rs. 2700 per month came to Rs. 32,400. The multiplier of 10 was applied. Hence, the total amount of compensation of Subhash Aggarwal also was determined at Rs. 3,24,000. It would be relevant to mention here that the age of Narinder Kumar at the time of accident was 46 years and that of Subhash Aggarwal was 42 years. There is no dispute on factual aspects as indicated above.

5. The claimants preferred an appeal before the High Court. The High Court applied the multiplier of 11 instead of 9 in the case of Narinder Kumar. The amount of income, etc., remained the same. Insofar as Subhash Aggarwal is concerned, the multiplier of 14 was applied in place of 10 as applied by the Tribunal. But the High Court refused to award interest on the increased amount in consideration of the fact that the matter was decided by the High Court at the threshold and it was not kept pending at all at that stage.

6. Being aggrieved by the order passed by the High Court in not awarding the interest as well as not applying proper multiplier as provided under the Schedule to the Motor Vehicles Act, the present appeals have been filed by special leave.

7. Learned counsel for the appellants has first submitted that the amount which has been deducted from the income of the deceased, namely, Narinder Kumar and Subhash Aggarwal, at the rate of Rs. 1500 and Rs. 2000 respectively, is not justified. We, however, find no merit in the submission made on that ac