The court emphasized that compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act must be just and may exceed the claimed amount, ensuring fair assessment based on evidence.

ORDER :

Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the judgement and award dated 06/10/2015 passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal(Aux.) at Junagadh in claim case no. 244/2007, the appellants have preferred present appeal under section 173 of the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 whereby the tribunal has awarded compensation of Rs.10,18,144/- with interest @ 9% per annum from the date of filing of the petition till the realization holding the opponents no.1 and 2 to the extent of 50% and rest 50% is attributed to opponent no.3.

2. The short facts of the case are that on 18/2/2007 accident occurred between the Truck bearing registration no. RJ-21GA-1027 and Maruti Car bearing no. GJ-5CF-2767 wherein the deceased received fatal injuries who was sitting in the Maruti car. The said truck tried to overtook the vehicle in front of it however the said vehicle did not given it a side and thus the offending truck dashed and its light went off all of a sudden and thus the car dashed with the truck causing the death of the driver as well as the deceased. The deceased was aged around 32 years and was working as T.F.O machinery repairer whereby used to earn his livelihood. The deceased was also filing his IT Returns. Thus the appellants filed the claim petition seeking compensation for Rs.15,00,000/-.

2.1 The learned tribunal after considering the evidence on record awarded the compensation as recorded in paragraph 1 of this judgment.

3. Heard learned advocates appearing for the respective parties.

4. Learned Advocate Mr.Shah for the appellant – org. claimants submitted that tribunal has not granted the future prospect while granting compensation as the deceased was involved in the repairing work of TFO Machines and has produced the IT Return for the last three years for counting the average income. He would further submit that considering the work with which the deceased was involved, the learned tribunal ought to have granted 40% rise of prospective income while granting compensation. He would further submit that tribunal has only granted Rs.50,000/- for loss of consortium whereas there are total five persons dependents of the deceased; including the parents and children of the deceased and therefore it is required to be enhanced. He would further submit that tribunal committed error in granting only Rs.10,000/- for funeral expenses which is on lower side and therefore in view of decision in case of National Insurance Company Ltd. Vs. Pranay Shethi [(2017) 16 SCC 680], the compensation granted under the non-pecuniary head is required to be increased.

4.1 By making above submissions, he would submit to enhance the compensation awarded by the tribunal.

5. Learned advocate Mr. Sood for respondent no.2 would submit that the tribunal has not committed any error in passing the award and therefore this Court may not interfere with the said finding.

6. Having heard the learned advocates appearing for the respective parties and examining the records and proceedings minutely and evidence on record, it could be noticed that deceased was doing repairing work of TFO Machines and earning his livelihood. To be noted that, on demise of deceased, the family had lost bread winner of the family. Human loss is always inaccessible. When guilt of a killer road accident is taken place wherein the sole bread winner of the family lost his life, the entire family will ruin and put in lurch to maintain itself if the just and fair compensation is not assessed. It would be worth to mention that looking to the work with which the deceased was involved and in absence of of evidence to have continuous source of income of the deceased 40% rise in his income is required to be granted in view of decision in case of Pranay Shethi (supra). Since the number of dependents are more the one-forth deduction towards the personal and pocket expenses is required to be granted.

7. In United India Insurance Co. Ltd. vs Satinder Kaur @ Satwinder Kaur And Ors. [AIR 2020 SUPREME COURT 3076] the Apex Cour