Heard Mr. S. Lodh, learned counsel appearing for the appellant and Mr. P. Saha, learned counsel appearing for the claimant-respondents.

2. This is an appeal by the National Insurance Company Limited, the insurer of the offending vehicle bearing registration No. No. TR01S0246 [Ambassador] owned by the respondent No.3, questioning the judgment and award dated 16.05.2013 delivered in T.S.(MAC) 338 of 2012 by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Court No. 4, West Tripura Agartala.

3. Appearing for the appellant, Mr. S. Lodh, learned counsel has urged fundamentally 3(three) grounds of objection viz:

(i) The owner of the other vehicle bearing registration No. TR03C9880 [Motor Bike] involved in the said accident has not been impleaded as the party in the claim proceeding and thus the claim petition was hit by the principle of non-joinder of necessary party.

In this regard Mr. Lodh, learned counsel has placed reliance on a decision of the Gauhati High Court in Dipak Kumar Jain Vs. Rita Das and Others reported in (2006) 3 GLR 720 as under :

10. In the face of the evidence on record, there can be no escape from the conclusion that the said accident took place, because of the rash and negligent driving of the vehicle No. AS25A0676 (hereinafter referred to as "the offending vehicle"). In a situation, such as the present one, merely because of the fact that two vehicles were involved in the accident, no liability to make payment of compensation could have been imposed on the present appellant as owner of the vehicle No. ASU4947 and/or its insurer, i.e., the respondent No. 4 herein. When two vehicles are involved in an accident, appropriate it is that the owners of both the vehicles be made parties to the claim proceeding so as to enable the Tribunal to determine as to whose fault, if any, has led to the accident. Making the owners of both the vehicles involved in the accident as parties to a claim proceeding does not necessarily mean that the owners/insurers of both the vehicles must be fastened with the liability to pay compensation even if there was no fault on the part of the driver of one of such vehicles. This fundamental principle of determination of compensation, in an application under Section 166 of the MV Act (which embodies the principle of payment of compensation on fault) appears to have escaped the pattention of the learned Tribunal.

(ii) Imposition of the penal interest @ 9% as bad as the traveler has no jurisdiction to impose any penal interest with retrospective effect under Section 171 of the M.V. Act.

(iii) Addition of loss of future prospect at 30% cannot be sustained as the decision of Santosh Devi Vs. National Insurance Company Limited and others, reported in (2012) 6 SCC 421 and Rajesh Vs. Rajbir Singh & Others, reported in (2013) 9 SCC 54, Sarla Verma & Ors. Vs. Delhi Transport Corp. & Another, reported in (2009) 6 SCC 121, Reshma Kumari Vs. Madan Mohan, reported in (2013) 9 SCC 65 in respect of loss of future prospects has been seriously questioned by the apex court in Shashikala & Others Vs. Gangalakshmamma & Another reported in (2015) ACJ 1239. Mr. Lodh, learned counsel has referred to the following passages from Shashikala (supra) to draw the attention of this court on that aspect:

“28. Hence, I am of the opinion that the Rajesh & Ors. (supra) itself applied the Santosh Devi (supra) case, even while clarifying that for self employed individuals, age is also a determining factor, as is seen in the observation in the case of Rajesh & Ors. (supra) in the case of self-employed or persons with fixed wages, in case, the deceased victim was below 40 years, there must be an addition of 50% to the actual income of the deceased while computing future prospects.

In fact, this gives shape to the view that future prospects are to be taken into account even in case of self employment and also that there cannot be a set formula for determining such compensation. The best application of this view may be seen in Sanjay Verma v.