Hon'ble LOHRA, J.—This appeal under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 (for short, ‘Act of 1988’) is preferred by the appellant-claimants seeking enhancement of compensation amount quantified and awarded by the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Bhilwara (for short, ‘learned Tribunal’), by its Award dated 21st of January 1998.

2. By the said Award, the learned Tribunal on adjudication of the claim of the appellants under Section 166 of the Act of 1988, assessed compensation to the tune of Rs.1,95,000/- under different heads and thereafter by apportioning 30% contributory negligence of the deceased has worked out total payable compensation to the appellants as Rs.1,36,500/-.

3. Succinctly stated, the facts giving rise to this appeal are that on 29th December 1994 when Digvijay Singh accompanied by one lady Smt. Jamna was going on motorbike bearing No.RJ-06-1M-0095 to Bhilwara, truck bearing No. RSS-5611 coming from opposite direction dashed with the motorbike causing grave and serious injuries to Digvijay Singh as well as pillion rider Smt. Jamna, and eventually both of them succumbed to death on the spot.

4. In the claim petition, cause of accident was attributed to rash and negligent driving of Truck by its driver resulting in head on collision. With a view to quantify amount of compensation, appellant-claimants have averred in the claim petition that at the time of death, Digvijay Singh was 28 years old earning his livelihood by doing agricultural work and milk vending and total monthly income of deceased was shown as Rs.3,000/-. On the strength of income of the deceased aforesaid, the appellants laid claim worth Rs.14,57,000/- under different heads.

5. After issuance of notice of claim petition, none appeared for respondents No.1 & 2 despite service and therefore the learned Tribunal proceeded ex-parte against them. The third respondent Insurance Company contested the claim and submitted its reply. In its return, the third respondent refuted all the averments contained in the claim petition and seriously dispu-ted monthly income of deceased at Rs.3,000/-. While joining issue with the appellants on rash and negligent driving of the offending vehicle (truck), the insurer has pleaded that occurrence of accident is directly attributable to the deceased as he was driving motorbike rashly and negligently at the time of accident. The insurer has also claimed immunity from its liability to pay compensation on the anvil that at the time of accident driver of the offending vehicle was not in possession of a valid driving licence. One more technical plea is also incorporated in the return by the insurer that the owner of the offending vehicle has not divulged requisite information about the occurrence of accident.

6. The learned Tribunal, on the strength of pleadings of the parties, settled five issues for determination.

7. For proving their case, appellants examined three witnesses; viz., AW1 Gopal Kanwar, AW2 Vikram Singh and AW3 Kana Das, and also placed on record 17 documents which were exhibited. The documentary and oral evidence tendered by the appellants was not countered by the respondents inasmuch as no evidence was tendered by the insurer.

8. The learned Tribunal, while deciding Issue No.1 has recorded a finding that although the accident has occurred due to rash and negligent driving of the offending vehicle truck, but deceased has also attributed for cause of accident. Adverting to Issue No.3, the learned Tribunal on evaluation of evidence has apportioned contributory negligence of the deceased to the extent of 30% while making it 70% vis-à-vis the offending vehicle. Issue No.2 relating to quantum of compensation is partially decided in favour of appellants and while considering monthly income of deceased as Rs.1500, the learned Tribunal applied multiplier of 15 after 1/3rd deduction for personal expenses and quantified the compensation for loss of dependency to the tune of Rs.1,80,000/-. For loss of consortium, the

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