The Supreme Court while computing Motor Accident Compensation, for the age group of 15-25 years has reiterated the multiplier to be ’18’.
Modifications in the award of MACT Tribunals on the Compensation ground have been done by Supreme Court in its two recent judgments.
Incidents to the Change
23 years oldBachelorMohitGoel met with an accident and died. A claim petition before the Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal was filed by his parents.The MACT determined the total compensation as Rs.25, 48,050/- but on account of contributory negligence to the extent of 50%, it directed the insurer, to pay only half of the said amount to the claimant. The MACT order was upheld by the High Court.
The bench of Justices Sanjay KishanKaul, Ajay Rastogi and Aniruddha Bose in Apex Court upheld the contributory negligence finding in case of Motor Accident Compensation and observed:
“We have examined the impugned judgment and all other perspective also and do not find any infirmity except two aspects: (a) the multiplier applied was 13 while as per the judgment in SarlaVerma&Ors. v. Delhi Transport Corporation &Anr.- (2009) 6 SCC 121, it should have been 18.(b) The interest granted is of 6% which generally the interest being granted is of 9%”
In terms of the above observations, the Bench modified the high Court’s Judgement.
The court made similar observation in another judgment of indication the Motor Accident Compensation. [ERUDHAYA PRIYA vs. STATE EXPRESS TRANSPORT CORPORATION LTD.]
Another Case
Here, while the claimant was 23 years old he became the victim who suffered disability due to an accident which occurred to him. The multiplier of 17 was applied by the High Court. TheSuprme Court modified the same in Motor Accident Compensation and observed:
“The aforesaid increase of multiplier is sought on the basis of age of the appellant as 23 years relying on the judgment in National Insurance Company Limited v. PranaySethi and Others. In para 42 of the said judgment, the Constitution Bench effectively affirmed the multiplier method to be used as mentioned in the table in the case of SarlaVerma (Smt) and Others. v. Delhi Transport Corporation and Another. 2 . In the age group of 15- 25 years, the multiplier has to be ’18’ along with factoring in the extent of disability.”
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There were different scales of multiplier followed by the Courts leading to inconsistencies, before the standardisation of the multiplier in SarlaVerma v. Delhi Transport Corporation (2009) 6 SCC 121.
Thus in SarlaVerma case it was held:
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 decision in National Insurance Company Limited v. PranaySethi and Others [(2017) 16 SCC 680] was upheld later.
