Allahabad High Court
NEW INDIA ASSURANCE CO LTD.versusSMT JAYA ADITYA AND OTHERS
- Decided
Holding
The Tribunal's award of compensation is affirmed and the appeal is dismissed.
Summary
The appeal filed by New India Assurance Co. challenged the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal's award of Rs.15,33,656 to the dependents of Sharda Prasad, who died in a bus accident. The insurer argued that the Tribunal had improperly accepted a salary certificate without proper proof and had misrecorded the deceased's age, leading to an inflated compensation. The respondents contended that the salary evidence was duly considered and the age assessment was correct. The High Court held that, although the salary certificate should have been proved by examination of a departmental official, the Tribunal’s acceptance of the document in the given circumstances was not wholly unjustifiable, and the slight age discrepancy did not affect the multiplier. Consequently, the Court found no merit in the appellant’s objections and affirmed the Tribunal’s award, dismissing the appeal.
Issues considered
- Whether the Tribunal erred in accepting the salary certificate without proper proof of the deceased's income.
- Whether the Tribunal erred in recording the deceased's age and applying the appropriate multiplier for compensation.
- Whether the quantum of compensation awarded should be reduced on the basis of the above errors.
Subjects
- Motor Accident Claims Tribunal
- Compensation
- Salary certificate
- Age assessment
- Quantum of damages
- Insurance liability
- Civil procedure
Judgment
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
FIRST APPEAL FROM ORDER No. - 2765 of 2003
New India Assurance Co Ltd.
.....Appellant(s)
Versus
Smt Jaya Aditya And Others
.....Respondent(s)
Counsel for Appellant(s) : Ramesh Singh
Counsel for Respondent(s) : Dinesh Kumar Gupta, Ram Kishor
Gupta, Shiv Shankar Gupta
Court No. - 54
HON'BLE ANIL KUMAR-X, J.
1. Shri Pawan Kumar Singh, learned counsel for the appellant and Shri
Ram Om Vikram Chauhan, learned counsel for respondents/claimant are
present. However, none has appeared on behalf of the respondent nos.4
and 5 despite notice have been duly served on them.
2. This appeal has been filed on behalf of the appellant-Insurance
Company with a prayer to set aside the impugned judgment and decree
dated 6.9.2003 passed by Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Hamirpur in
M.A.C.P. No.62 of 2000 (Jaya Aditya & Ors. vs. Rajindra Singh Rana &
Ors.) whereby the claim petition was allowed and an amount of
Rs.15,33,656/- has been awarded as compensation to the claimants.
BRIEF FACTS
3. Briefly stated, deceased Sharda Prasad, on 29.09.1999, boarded Bus
No. UP-07/4543 at Karn Prayag for going to Rishikesh, from where he
had to proceed to Dehradun. During the journey, the said bus, being
driven rashly and negligently, lost its balance and fell into Alaknanda
River. In the said accident, deceased Sharda Prasad and four other
passengers died.
4. The claim petition was filed by the dependants of the deceased
claiming compensation for his death. It was asserted that the deceased
was working as Junior Telephone Officer and was drawing a basic pay of
Rs.7,500/- per month and his total salary was Rs.11,927/- per month. The
Tribunal, after considering the evidence available on record, awarded a
FAFO No. 2765 of 2003
2
sum of Rs.15,33,656/- as compensation.
ARGUMENTS ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT
5. Learned counsel for the appellant-Insurance Company has submitted
that the Tribunal has committed an error in determining the income of the
deceased on the basis of the salary asserted by the claimants. No salary
certificate was produced and the alleged salary of the deceased was not
duly proved by reliable evidence. Therefore, the income taken by the
Tribunal for the purpose of computation of compensation is not justified.
6. It is further submitted that the date of birth of the deceased, as borne
out from the relevant records, was 19.07.1962. Thus, on the date of
accident, i.e. 29.09.1999, the deceased was aged about 37 years and 2
months, whereas the Tribunal has wrongly recorded his age as 36 years. It
is, therefore, submitted that the compensation awarded by the Tribunal is
on the higher side and deserves to be reduced.
ARGUMENTS ON BEHALF OF RESPONDENTS-CLAIMANTS
7. Learned counsel for the respondents-claimants has submitted that the
deceased was working as Junior Telephone Officer and his salary was
duly considered by the Tribunal on the basis of the evidence available on
record. The compensation awarded by the Tribunal is just and reasonable
and does not call for any interference.
8. It is further submitted that the Tribunal has rightly assessed the age of
the deceased and determined the compensation accordingly. The appellant
has failed to point out any material error in the award passed by the
Tribunal. The appeal, therefore, deserves to be dismissed.
CONCLUSION
9. I have considered the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the
parties and perused the record.
10. There is no dispute with regard to the factum of accident and death of
deceased Sharda Prasad. The award has been challenged by the appellant
only on the quantum of compensation.
FAFO No. 2765 of 2003
3
11. So far as the income of the deceased is concerned, the submission of
learned counsel for the appellant that the salary of the deceased was not
proved, cannot be accepted. From the record, it appears that a salary
certificate was produced before the Tribunal. It is true that the said salary
certificate did not contain all the entries relating to the salary of the
deceased and mainly contained the details of basic pay, dearness
allowance and other allowances. This aspect was also considered by the
Tribunal.
12. So far as the income of the deceased is concerned, the submission of
learned counsel for the appellant deserves consideration to the extent that
it was incumbent upon the claimants to duly prove the salary certificate
by summoning an official from the concerned department along with the
relevant records. A mere production of the salary certificate, without
proving the same in accordance with law, could not, as a matter of
principle, be treated as duly proved evidence of the income of the
deceased.
13. However, the approach adopted by the Tribunal, though legally
unsustainable, cannot be said to be wholly unjustifiable in the peculiar
facts of the present case. The deceased was employed at Dehradun and
the claim petition was filed at Hamirpur. The salary certificate, therefore,
was required to be proved by summoning the concerned departmental
official along with the relevant records. For summoning such official
from Dehradun, the claimants were required to undertake the process of
identifying the appropriate official, securing his presence before the
Tribunal and depositing the prescribed process fee along with the amount
equivalent to his one day’s salary in the Treasury, as required under the
procedure for summoning a witness in civil proceedings. For the widow
of the deceased prosecuting the claim at Hamirpur, undertaking such
exercise at Dehradun was undoubtedly an arduous task.
14. Thus, though the salary certificate ought to have been duly proved by
examining the concerned official along with the relevant records, the
circumstances in which the Tribunal accepted the same cannot be
completely ignored. The absence of examination of the departmental
official, therefore, by itself, cannot justify discarding the salary certificate
altogether, particularly when the Tribunal considered the material
FAFO No. 2765 of 2003
4
available on record for determining the income of the deceased. The
approach of the Tribunal, though not strictly sustainable in law, cannot, in
the peculiar circumstances, be held to be so unjustifiable as to warrant
interference with the award on this ground alone.
15. The appellant has also challenged the age of the deceased. It is
submitted that as per the relevant record, the date of birth of the deceased
was 19.07.1962. The accident took place on 29.09.1999. Thus, on the date
of accident, the deceased was aged about 37 years and 2 months. The
Tribunal, however, has taken his age as 36 years.
16. The aforesaid difference, in the facts of the present case, does not
materially affect the determination of compensation. The deceased was
admittedly below 40 years of age on the date of accident. Therefore, even
if his age is taken as 37 years and 2 months instead of 36 years, the same
would not result in any change in the applicable multiplier. Consequently,
the objection raised by the appellant regarding the age of the deceased
does not provide any ground for reducing the compensation awarded by
the Tribunal.
17. Thus, the grounds raised by the appellant challenging the income as
well as the age of the deceased do not warrant interference with the
award. The compensation awarded by the Tribunal does not call for any
reduction on these grounds.
18. In view of the aforesaid, this appeal is dismissed and the impugned
award of the Tribunal is affirmed.
(Anil Kumar-X,J.)
September 10, 2026
SK
Digitally signed by :-
SUSHEEL KUMAR
High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
Checking your session…