Compensation in fatal accident cases under amended provisions of Motor Vehicles Act, limiting claims to a fixed sum without non-pecuniary damages.

JUDGMENT

Jaspreet Singh, J.

Heard Shri. Raj Kumar Vishwakarma, learned counsel appearing under the authority of Shri. Balendu Shekhar for the appellants and Shri. Arun Kumar, learned standing counsel for the State respondents.

2. The instant appeal has been preferred under section 173 of the MOTOR VEHICLES ACT , 1988 passed in Claim Petition No.616/2015 wherein in a death case the Tribunal has awarded a sum of Rs. 1,52,000/- along with 7% interest in favour of the claimants-appellants.

3. The claimants-appellants, who are the parents of the deceased Mansi filed a claim petition bearing No.616/2015 under Section 163A of the MOTOR VEHICLES ACT , 1988 with the averments that on 15.07.2015 at around 03:00 PM, the girl child Mansi was hit by a Jeep bearing UP-32-BG-3839, as a result, Mansi was severely injured and during her treatment within three hours, she expired.

4. The claim petition came to be contested by the respondents and it was denied that the accident occurred with the vehicle belonging to the respondents.

5. However, upon exchange of pleadings, the Tribunal framed four issues and after leading oral and documentary evidence, it concluded that the accident was caused by rash and negligent driving of the Jeep bearing No.UP-32-BG-3839. The driver of the offending vehicle namely Mithilesh Rai was also chargesheeted. It was also found that the driver of the offending vehicle had a valid and subsisting licence and as the vehicle belonged to the State of U.P., it was exempted from the Insurance.

6. The Tribunal thereafter considered the mater and applying the Schedule as appended to Section 163A of the MOTOR VEHICLES ACT , 1988, awarded a sum of Rs. 1,52,000/- in favour of the claimants-appellants and against the State-respondents. It is this award dated 24.03.2017 which has been challenged by the claimants-appellants in the instant appeal.

7. The submission of the learned counsel for the appellant is that the Tribunal has not awarded the amount appropriately and since the deceased was a child, it has not taken note of the fact that the deceased also used to help her mother and no adequate amount has been paid towards conventional head and as such the award deserves to be enhanced.

8. Learned standing counsel while refuting the aforesaid submissions states that the Tribunal has properly noticed the notional income as provided in the Second Schedule appended to Section 163A of the MOTOR VEHICLES ACT , 1988 and thereafter has computed the compensation which in the given background does not suffer from any error and the appeal deserves to be dismissed.

9. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and from the perusal of the material on record, this Court finds that insofar as the findings returned by the Tribunal relating to factum of accident, involvement of vehicle, rash and negligent driving of its driver, they are not challenged either by filing a cross appeal or cross objection in terms of Order 41, Rule 22 CPC. Thus, the same are affirmed.

10. Now, the only issue which is left for consideration is as to whether the Tribunal has given an appropriate amount or not. In this regard, it will also be relevant to notice that Second Schedule appended to Section 163A of the MOTOR VEHICLES ACT , 1988 has been repealed and now one consolidated sum is payable in cases relating to death as per the amended provisions which has come into effect in the year 2018.

11. This Court is reminded of its decision in Poonam Gupta v. Arun Kumar Mishra , 2019 SCC Online All 6786, whereby this Court had the occasion to consider the impact of the amended provisions which came int