The court established that compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act must be just and may exceed the amount claimed, considering the deceased's income and family dependency.

ORDER :

J. C. Doshi, J.

Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the judgment and award passed in Motor Accident Claim Petition No.1728 of 2002 (Old MACP No.973 of 1995) dated 10-4-2006 by the learned Motor Accident Claim Tribunal, Patan the appellants preferred this appeal whereby the learned tribunal has awarded compensation of Rs.2,00,000/- with interest @ 7.5% and cost to be held liable to the opponents.

2. The brief facts of the case are that on 01.05.1995 i.e. on the day of incident, the deceased Ramabhai Dhanabhai Chaudhary was traveling in tempo no. GJ-3-U-7147 and he was returning from village-Radhanpur and was going towards village- Sami. The respondent no.1 was driving his tempo in a rash and negligent manner. The respondent no.2 is the owner and respondent no.3 is the insurer of the said tempo. Further, according to the appellants when the above tempo reached near the scene of offence, one taxi no. GJ-1-V-1217 was coming from the opposite direction. Driver Gajendrasinh Shambhusing was driving his taxi in a rash and negligent manner. Respondent no.4 is the owner and respondent no.5 -National Insurance Company is the insurer of the said taxi. Due to tortuous act on the part of both the drivers of both the vehicles, both the vehicles dashed with each other. As a result thereof, the passengers traveling in the tempo sustained injuries, out of which the deceased Ramabhai Dhanabhai Chaudhary succumbed to the injuries.

2.1 The claim petition was filed seeking compensation of Rs.6,00,000/- and the learned tribunal after considering the evidence on record awarded the compensation as recorded in paragraph 1 of this judgment.

3. Heard learned advocate appearing for the respective parties.

4. Learned Advocate Mr.Thakkar for the appellant – org. claimants submitted that considering the oral evidence of the widow of the deceased the tribunal has not taken up the income of the deceased properly as the deceased was engaged in agriculture work and was earning Rs.60,000/- per annum as he is having own land. He would further submit that the tribunal ought to have considered the prospective income of the deceased. He would further submit that tribunal has granted very low amount for loss of consortium whereas there are total four 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 very low amount for loss of estate and 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 and Mr.Meena for respondent no.5 and 3 respectively would submit that the tribunal has rightly adopted the rate of minimum wage prevailing at the time of accident as the basis of income of the deceased at Rs.1,250/- in absence of producing any documentary evidence to assess just and fair compensation. As far as other non-pecuniary head is concerned, they would concede the same and urge to pass appropriate order.

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 travelling in the one of the errant vehicle and at the relevant time he was the only bread winner of the family survived by four claimants including the widow, children and parents. Since the alone bread winner of the family has lost his life, the entire family will ruin and would in lurch to maintain itself. Thus, the tribunal ought to have considered the income of the deceased rationalizing the rate of minimum wage to arrive at the dependency loss. To be noted that, deceased was survived by four dependents and considering the maint