Supreme Court Judgment on the Motor Accident Claims

It is painful to see the manner in which the High Courts are deciding the cases. In the recent case of Rebeka Minz and Others v. United India Insurance Co. Ltd. and Another, the Supreme Court reprimanded the High Court for giving a judgment in which no reasons were cited. 

In this case, the husband of the first appellant died in an accident due to rash and negligent driving of the driver of the truck.

The appellants being the wife and children of the deceased preferred the claim before the Motor Accidents Tribunal. The Tribunal, after analyzing the entire evidence placed before it, awarded a sum of Rs. 10,08,000/- as compensation

The respondent aggrieved by the compensation approached the High Court. The High Court while disposing of the appeal reduced the compensation awarded by the Tribunal and also the rate of interest by holding as under:

"Considering the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and keeping in view findings of the learned Tribunal with regard to the quantum of compensation amount awarded and the basis on which the same has been arrived at, I feel, the interest of justice would be best served if the awarded compensation amount of Rs.10,08,000/- is modified and reduced to Rs. 5,00,000/- which is payable to the claimants. The claimants are also entitled to interest @ 6% per annum from the date of the claim application, till deposit of the amount. The impugned award is modified to the said extent."

It is depressing to see that the High Court while reducing the quantum of compensation as well as the rate of interest failed to assign any reason.

The Supreme Court accepted the appeal in this matter. The only question before the Supreme Court to be examined was as to what is the multiplier to be applied. The Supreme Court applied the formula set out in the case of Sarla Verma in para 42 which reads as under:

“42. We therefore hold that the multiplier to be used should be as mentioned in Column (4) of the table above (prepared by applying Susamma Thomas, Trilok Chandra and Charlie), which starts with an operative multiplier of 18 (for the age groups of 15 to 20 and 21 to 25 years), reduced by one unit for every five years, that is M-17 for 26 to 30 years, M-16 for 31 to 35 years, M-15 for 36 to 40 years, M-14 for 41 to 45 years, and M-13 for 46 to 50 years, then reduced by two units for every five years, that is, M-11 for 51 to 55 years, M-9 for 56 to 60 years, M-7 for 61 to 65 years and M-5 for 66 to 70 years.”

The Supreme Court followed the above mentioned decisions and said that: 

"Since the deceased was stated to be 35 years old at the time of his death, the multiplier would be 16 which has to be applied for calculating the compensation. The Tribunal after examining the materials before it, found that after deducting 1/3rd of personal expenses, the monthly income of the deceased was Rs.7,000/- and the net contribution to the family was ascertained at Rs. 84,000/- per annum. Applying the multiplier of 16, the compensation works out to Rs. 13,44,000/- . Therefore, while setting aside the order of the High Court insofar as it reduced the quantum of compensation, we modify the compensation payable to the appellants in a sum of Rs. 13,44,000/- [84,000/- x 16]. The said sum of Rs. 13,44,000/-should carry interest at the rate of 7% per annum from the date of application till the date of realization."

After reading this judgment, I was thinking about the reasons that made the High Court reduce the compensation. I could think of none. Even, the tribunal's judgment is flawed in its own manner. The Tribunal applied the multiplier of 12. It is beyond my capabilities to comprehend what prompted the Tribunal to adopt the multiplier of 12 in this case when the deceased was 35 years old.

The quality of judgments as well as the level of practice in our Courts is clearly on a decline. This case was crystal clear and the precedence was laid down in this regard. Still. the claimant had suffer so much to get what rightfully belonged to her.

The High Courts as well as the advocates of this country need to introspect and understand why such miscarriage of justice is happening and why the litigants have to approach the Apex Court for simple problems which could be solved at the grass root level.