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Motor Accident Compensation: ‘18’ multiplier to be applied for 15-25 age group says SC
The Supreme Court in its recent two judgments has altered the compensation to be paid, which is dealt with by the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal on this ground.
The apex court has repeated that when the motor accident compensation is to be computed, the multiplier has to be '18' for the age group of 15-25 years.
A 23years old boy, Mohit Goel, met with an accident and died. His parents filed a petition claiming before the Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal (MACT). The total compensation determined by the MACT was Rs.25,48,050/- but it directed the insurer to pay to the claimant only 50% of the claimed amount due to contributory negligence. This order of the MACT was upheld by the High Court.
The apex court’s bench comprising of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Ajay Rastogi, and Aniruddha Bose modified the judgment of the High Court due to some observations. It upheld the contributory negligence finding. Those observations were that after examining the judgment it could fine no weak points except for two features:
The court made a similar judgment in a case delivered this week, ERUDHAYA PRIYA vs. STATE EXPRESS TRANSPORT CORPORATION LTD. In this case, the claimant was the victim who suffered disability due to an accident which occurred to him while he was 23 year old. The multiplier applied was of ‘17’. The apex court modified the same 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. Pranay Sethi 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 Sarla Verma (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."
There were different scales of multiplier followed by the Courts leading to unpredictability before the standardization of the multiplier in Sarla Verma’s case. In this case, the court held that the multiplier to be used should be as mentioned in column (4) of the Table (prepared by applying
Susamma Thomas, Trilok Chandra, and Charlie). It starts with an operative multiplier of 18 for the age groups of 15 to 20 and 21 to 25 years and reduced by one unit every five years.
This was further upheld in National Insurance Company Limited v. Pranay Sethi and Others.
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