The court reaffirmed the importance of the multiplier method in compensation claims, emphasizing the significance of emotional trauma in addition to physical disability in quantifying just compensation.

JUDGEMENT

This Civil Miscellaneous Appeal has been filed to aside the Judgment and decree made in MCOP No.759/2014 dt. 26.08.2022 on the file of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal the Principal Subordinate Judge) Dharmapuri( in short ''tribunal'') and enhance the award amount.

2. On 17.02.2014 at about 08.30 a.m., the claimant and his aunty were ridding in the Hero Honda Splendor motorcycle bearing registration No. TN 29 AC 4339 at the Dharmapuri-Morapur main road, when the claimant was trying to turn the bike, the unregistered Hero Honda Splendor pro bike dashed against the claimant, due to which the claimant sustained grevious injuries. Thereafter the claimant filed the petition before the tribunal claiming compensation. The second respondent contested the case by filing counter. After considering the oral and documentary evidence the tribunal awarded compensation. Challenging the quantum of compensation the claimant filed this appeal.

3. The learned counsel for the appellant/claimant submits that the claimant has sustained 30% permanent disability but the tribunal has awarded Rs.3,000/- per percentage of disability without applying multiplier method. To substantiate his claim the learned counsel relied the judgements of the Supreme Court reported on 2023 (3) SCC 439 in the case of Sidram Vs. United India Insurance Company Ltd.

113. Before we close this matter, it needs to be underlined, as observed in Pappu Deo Yadav (supra) that Courts should be mindful that a serious injury not only permanently imposes physical limitations and disabilities but too often inflicts deep mental and emotional scars upon the victim. The attendant trauma of the victim's having to live in a world entirely different from the one she or he is born into, as an invalid, and with degrees of dependence on others, robbed of complete personal choice or autonomy, should forever be in the judge's mind, whenever tasked to adjudge compensation claims. Severe limitations inflicted due to such injuries undermine the dignity (which is now recognized as an intrinsic component of the right to life under Article 21) of the individual, thus depriving the person of the essence of the right to a wholesome life which she or he had lived, hitherto. From the world of the able bodied, the victim is thrust into the world of the disabled, itself most discomfiting and unsettling. If courts nit-pick and award niggardly amounts oblivious of these circumstances, there is resultant affront to the injured victim. [See: Pappu Deo Yadav (supra)]

4. Further, he relied another judgement in the case of Sandeep Khanuja Vs Atul Dande and another reported 2017 3 SCC 351 :

We may observe at the outset that it is now a settled principle, repeatedly stated and restated time and again by this Court, that in awarding compensation the multiplier method is logically sound and legally well established. This method, known as 'principle of multiplier', has been evolved to quantify the loss of income as a result of death or permanent disability suffered in an accident. Recognition to this principle was given for the first time in the year 1966 in the case of Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Subhagwanti & Ors.[1] Again, in Madhya Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, Bairagarh, Bhopal v. Sudhakar & Ors.[2], the Court referred to an English decision while emphasising the import of this principle in the following manner:

“4. A method of assessing damages, usually followed in England, as appears from Mallet v. McMonagle[3], is to calculate the net pecuniary loss upon an annual basis and to “a