JUDGMENT
B.K. Somasekhara, J.
1. The award of the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Secunderabad in O.P. 475 of 1980 dated 5.7.1980 is challenged by the claimants on the ground that the amount of Rs. 10,000/-awarded by way of compensation in a claim petition filed under Section 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (for short ‘the Act’) for the death of the deceased Shankar Reddy is inadequate.
2. The claimants are the parents of the deceased Shankar Reddy who died in the motor accident that occurred on 13.5.1978 which is found to be due to the rash and negligent driving of lorry No. MHB 7881 by its driver respondent No. 2. Respondent No. 1 is the owner of the vehicle and respondent No. 4 is the insurer. Finding the age of the deceased at 26 years and the age of the claimants at 59 years and 45 years respectively and holding that the family of the deceased and the claimants have some agricultural land and the family never lost anything by the death of the deceased and actually benefited due to his death, the Tribunal fixed a notional sum of Rs. 10,000/- by way of compensation.
3. The learned advocate for the appellants has contended that in the first place, the Tribunal did not take the scientific multiplier method to arrive at proper compensation and secondly without evidence in the case and acting merely on surmises awarded a very low sum of Rs. 10,000/-. The learned advocate for the respondent has tried to support the award.
4. In a batch of claim petitions which were tried together and disposed of by means of a common judgment, the Tribunal has dealt with O.P. 475 of 1978 in question separately for assessing the compensation. It was found from the evidence that the claimants and the deceased belong to an agricultural family wherein deceased was assisting his parents in the agricultural work. The evidence was sought for the claimant’s stand that the deceased was educated up to Xth standard. The Tribunal recorded the reasoning in support of his finding as follows:
In the normal circumstances when the family is having immovable property from which the family is getting income there will not be much assistance by one member to the other though any assistance in managing the properties will ensure for the entire family. The education record is not produced to prove his age or to what extent he studied and when he completed his studies. He is said to have completed 10th class only one year ago but his age is mentioned as 26 years which appears to be unacceptable. Considering that by acceleration of the succession due to the death of the deceased the petitioners have been benefited and also considering that they ate already sufficiently aged and the assistance if any they have from their son would be only for a short period and also as there is no possibility of estimating the financial assistance they would have got from the services of the deceased son I feel a compensation of Rs. 10,000/- will be a reasonable compensation in this case considering the status of the family.
On the face of it, the reasoning of the Tribunal is cynical and unsocialistic and inhuman in the approach of the matter. The reasoning borders more on surmise or a conjecture or even an imagination. It must be presumed that all human beings are good and the conduct of all children towards their parents is good. It is the contrary which should be established from the circumstances. A member in an agricultural family assists in the agricultural operations and the management of the family in one way or the other. Even at the worst his contribution to the family through his labour equivalent to an agricultural labourer cannot be ignored. The benefit to the family due to the death of the deceased in the succession of the share of the deceased in the properties is a wild imagination of the Tribunal. It cannot be forgotten that the family would have got the benefit even in case of natural death. When such a death is accelerated due to the indiscriminate act of the driver of the vehicle, such a circumstance should not be taken into consideration. Fundamentally the Tribunal has ignored and betrayed its ignorance about the method of assessment of compensation in a case of death claim. The scientific method called multiplier method has been settled by the Supreme Court in General Manager, Kerala State Road Trans. Corporation v. Susamma Thomas and U.P. State Road Trans Corporation v. Trilok Chandra , holding consistently that the said method is the more scientific method. It takes care of loss of contribution to the family, loss of dependency and loss to the estate also. The Tribunal should be impressed that by adopting such a method there would be less of error in arriving at compensation. Taking the age of the deceased at 26 years and the ages of the claimants at 59 and 45 years and even taking the age of claimant No. 1 at 59 years, the multiplier in this case ought to have been 8. The potential income of an agriculture labourer-and agriculturist in the management of the property either for supervision or for labour cannot be less than Rs. 20/- per diem or Rs. 600/- per mensem having due regard to the age of the deceased at 26 years and accepting that he was bound to spend quite substantial amount on himself and deducting Rs. 200 for that purpose, his contribution to the family could have been at least Rs. 400/-per mensem or Rs. 4,800/- per annum to represent the popular expression called multiplicand. With that multiplicand and multiplier of 8, the loss of contribution to the family or loss of estate should be Rs. 38,400/-. The precedents supra have said authoritatively that some conventional amount towards loss of expectation of life and some incidental expenses ought to be awarded. Having due regard to the age of the claimants and the deceased, adding Rs. 10,000/- towards loss of expectation of life and Rs. 3,000/- towards incidental expenses for transportation of dead body, funeral and other incidental expenses, the total amount of compensation ought to have been at least Rs. 51,400/-. As against this, the Tribunal took a fancy of awarding Rs. 10,000/- which is most unjust compensation as against the duty of the Tribunal to award just compensation within the meaning of Section 110-B of the Act. Such awards will not inspire confidence in the Tribunals by the customers of justice. The Tribunals should be impressed that unless such awards are avoided, the duty cast upon them in law cannot be expected to be fulfilled as required. Since the claim is restricted to only Rs. 50,000/- that should be awarded.
5. It is also surprising that the Tribunal has not awarded even the interest which is being consistently awarded by the courts as per the settled law although it is in the discretion of the Tribunal to award the same under Section 110-CC of the Act and for not exercising such discretion reasons are to be given. The claimants are also thus entitled to get interest at 12 per cent per annum which is being consistently awarded by the precedents at 12 per cent with costs throughout.
6. In the result, the appeal is allowed. The award of the Tribunal is set aside and substituted with the following The claimants shall be entitled to recover a compensation of Rs. 50,000/- with costs throughout and simple interest at 12 per cent from the date of the petition to the date of the payment. If any amount is already paid, that shall be deducted. The amount of compensation shall be apportioned amongst the claimants, i.e., at 60 per cent to the claimant No. 1 and 40 per cent to the claimant No. 2. This shall be subject to depositing of the amount in any nationalised bank or scheduled bank in accordance with the directions of the Supreme Court in Susamma Thomas case 1994 ACJ 1 (SC). If the amount is not paid to the claimants within one month from today, the rate of interest shall be 15 per cent per annum thereafter.