An appeal was filed before the Allahabad High Court contending that the deceased was 52 years & 11 months old when he succumbed to the accident and the multiplier of 5 applied by the MACT was on the basis that the deceased had only 5 years of service left.
During the course of the hearing, the Allahabad High Court held that the multiplier of 5 applied with respect to a 52 years old victim, was a ‘ mistake apparent on the face of the record’ by the MACT. And has said that the correct multiplier is 11, which should have been applied.
The court has granted compensation in an accident claim and also directed the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT), Kanpur Nagar to rectify the multiplier it had applied.
Applying a multiplier of 5 was against the Supreme Court mandate, referring to the judgment in Sarla Verma vs. Delhi Transport Co. (2009) 6 SCC 121 & National Insurance Company Ltd. vs. Pranay Sethi & others (2017) SC 1050; the High Court emphasized that “Even if we consider the age of deceased to be above 50 years, he comes under the age bracket of 51-55. Such that the multiplier would be 11.”
The matter was heard by a divisional bench of Justice Dr. Kaushal Jayendra Thaker; noting that neither the accident nor the issue of negligence as decided by the MACT was in dispute.
Therefore, accordingly, the appeal was allowed while directing the insurance company to deposit the requisite amount on or before 31st January 2021.
