1 / 5 2025:CGHC:28388 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR MAC No. 1855 of 2019 1. Smt. Leela Pandey W/o Late Lalit Kumar Pandey Aged About 50 Years 2. Shailesh Kumar Pandey S/o Late Lalit Kumar Pandey Aged About 30 3. Ku. Pratima Pandey D/o Late Lalit Kumar Pandey Aged About 27 Years 4. Ku. Dipti Pandey D/o Late Lalit Kumar Pandey Aged About 25 Years All are R/o House No.14, Ward No.37, Bus Stand Bhadrapara, Near Ambika Mandir, Police Station Balco Nagar, Tahsil and District Korba, Chhattisgarh. --- Appellants/ Claimants versus 1. Ashok Kumar Sarathi S/o Chandaili Ram Sarathi, R/o Village And Post Kanaki, Police Station Urga, Tahsil Kartala, District Korba, Chhattisgarh. (Driver ) 2. Ravishankar Dubey S/o Vijay Nath Dubey, R/o Quarter No. B/342 Adarsh Nagar Kusmunda, Police Station Kusmunda, Tahsil Katghora, District Korba, Chhattisgarh. (Owner) 3. Divisional Manager The New India Insurance Company Ltd. Sada Complex Transport Nagar Korba Tahsil And District Korba, Chhattisgarh. (Insurer Vehicle), District : Korba, Chhattisgarh 4. Sheshmani Pandey S/o Late Suryabhan Pandey, R/o Village Baghel Tahsil Majhauli, District Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh., District : Sidhi, Madhya Pradesh --- Respondents ____________________________________________________________ For Appellants : Mr. P. Acharya, Advocate For Respondent No. 1 : Mr. K.K. Dewangan, Adv. on behalf of Mr. Vijay Kumar Sahu, Advocate. For Respondent No. 3 : Mr. Samir Singh, Advocate PAWAN KUMAR JHA Digitally signed by PAWAN KUMAR JHA 2 / 5 Hon'ble Shri Justice Parth Prateem Sahu Order On Board 27/06/2025 1. Appellants-claimants have filed this appeal under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short “Act of 1988”) seeking enhancement of amount of compensation, challenging the award dated 01.10.2018 passed by Learned Second Additional Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Korba, District Korba, Chhattisgarh (for short “Claims Tribunal”) in Claim Case No. 48/2015, whereby learned Claims Tribunal allowed the application filed under Section 166 of the Act, 1988 in part and awarded total sum of ₹ 51,47,072/- as compensation in motor accidental death case. 2. Facts of the case relevant for disposal of this appeal are that on 21.11.2014 at about 2:50 p.m., Lalit Kumar Pandey was going from Kusmunda to Korba on his motor cycle, when he reached near Vaishali Nagar turn, non-applicant No. 1 dashed him while driving his vehicle truck no. CG 12/S-0632 in a rash and negligent manner. In the said accident, Lalit Pandey suffered grievous injuries over his person, he was taken to the hospital where doctor declared him dead during treatment. 3. Appellants, who are widow, children of deceased Lalit Kumar Pandey, filed an application under Section 166 of the Act of 1988 seeking compensation of ₹ 94,16,544/- pleading therein that on the date of accident deceased was about 52 years of age, was an able bodied person. Before the accident he was employed as Drill Operator in SECL and was earning ₹ 61,135/- per month to support himself and his family. 4. Respondent No. 1 & 2 / Non-applicant No. 1 & 2 -driver and owner of the offending truck submitted their reply to the claim application, while denying adverse pleadings made therein, it was further pleaded that the accident was caused by an unknown vehicle in which Lalit Kumar Pandey died. The 3 / 5 vehicle owned by non-applicant No. 2 has been wrongly implicated in the Crime number 289/14 registered in the police station, Kusmunda . It is further stated that at the time of the accident, non-applicant No. 1-driver was possessing a valid and effective license to drive the vehicle and the vehicle was being driven under the terms of insurance policy. 5. Respondent No. 3/ Non-applicant No. 3/ Insurance Company filed its reply to the claim application, while denying all the adverse pleadings made in the application, it was further pleaded that on the date of the accident, deceased Lalit Kumar Pandey himself was driving his motor cycle no. CG 12/AG-8640 in a rash and negligent manner, he suddenly crossed the road without signalling indicator. Exaggerated amount of compensation has been claimed by the applicants in the application on the false grounds. On the date of the accident, non-applicant No. 1 did not have a valid and effective driving license to drive the offending truck. There is contributory negligence on the part of deceased in the accident. 6. Learned Claims Tribunal, upon appreciation of pleadings and evidence placed on record by respective parties, held that deceased Lalit Kumar Pandey died due to injuries suffered in the accident arising out of rash and negligent driving of offending truck driven by non-applicant No. 1. Contributory negligence, non-joinder of parties and breach of conditions of insurance policy was not found to be proved, calculated the amount of compensation and awarded ₹ 51,47,072/- as total compensation with interest @ 7% p.a. from the date of filing of claim application and fastened primary liability to satisfy the amount of compensation upon non-applicant No. 3/ Insurance company. 7. Learned counsel for appellants-claimants has raised only ground in this appeal and would submit that learned Claims Tribunal awarded amount of compensation under the head of loss of consortium to appellant No. 1 only 4 / 5 and erred in not awarding any amount of compensation under the head of loss of consortium to appellants-claimants No. 2 to 4 who are children of deceased and places reliance upon the decision of Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Magma General Insurance Company vs. Nanu Ram alias Chuhuru Ram and others reported in (2018) 18 SCC 130. 8. Learned counsel for respective respondents opposes the submission fo learned counsel for appellants-claimants and submit that the amount of compensation awarded by the Claims Tribunal is just and proper in the facts of the case, which does not call for any interference. However, they do not disptue the legal submission made by learned cousnel for appellants- claimants based on the decision of Hon’ble Surpeme Court in the case of Nanu Ram alias Chuhuru Ram (supra). 9. I have heard learned counsel for the respective parties and also perused the record. 10. Perusal of impugned award would show that the Claims Tribunal in para-26 of the impugned award considering entirety of the facts of the claim case has awarded just amount of compensation, taking note of the decision of Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of National Insurance Company Ltd. v. Pranay Sethi reported in (2017) 16 SCC 680 and in the case of Sarla Verma & others v. Delhi Transport Corp. & anr. reported in (2009) 6 SCC. However, learned Claims Tribunal erred in not awarding amount of compensation towards loss of consortium to all the claimants except appellant No. 1/husband. Award of compensation under the head of loss of consortium has been explained by Hon’ble Supreme Court Nanu Ram alias Chuhuru Ram (supra) wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court has explained the types of consortium ie., spousal consortium to husband/ widow, parental consortium to children and filial consortium to parents of the deceased. In the case at hand, appellant no. 2 to 4 are children of deceased and therefore they are 5 / 5 also entitled for ₹ 40,000/- each towards loss of parental consortium, which comes to ₹ 1,20,000/-. It is ordered accordingly. 11. Now the appellants/claimants shall be entitled for total sum of compensation of ₹ 50,77,072/- towards loss fo dependency, ₹ 40,000 towards loss of spousal consortium to appellant No. 1, ₹ 15,000/- towards loss of estate, ₹ 15,000/- towards funeral expenses ie., ₹ 51,47,072/-, as awarded by the Claims Tribunal. Besides the above amount of compensation computed by the Claims Tribunal, appellants No. 2 to 4 shall also be entitled for ₹ 40,000/- each towards loss of parental consortium. Thus the total compensation payable shall be ₹ 52,67,072/- The enhanced amount of compensation shall carry simple interest @ 7.5% p.a. from the date of filing of claim application till its realization. Any amount paid to the appellants-claimants pursuant to the impugned award shall be adjusted from the amount of compensation as calculated above. Other conditions of the impugned award shall remain intact. 12. In the result, appeal is allowed in part and the impugned award is modified to the extent as indicated herein-above. Sd/- (Parth Prateem Sahu) Judge pwn