K. Kannan, J.@mdashFAO No. 6019 of 2010 is at the instance of the owner and driver who challenge the issue of liability and seek for full indemnity from the insurer. FAO No. 4300 of 2011 is at the instance of the insurance company challenging the quantum of compensation pointing out to an alleged illegality in the order that does not make any provision for deduction for personal expenses and has adopted a multiplier more than what is permissible under law. As regards the liability, the Tribunal relied on the evidence of RW1 Amarjit Kaur who is a Clerk of the office of DTO, Hoshiarpur that spoke from the record relating to a copy of the driving licence produced by the driver. She gave evidence to the effect that the licence which was renewed has current in relation to an original issue of licence for licence No. 8518/P/1991-92. This licence had been issued in the name of one Rupinder Singh while the name of the driver that produced the renewed driving licence was one Mohinder Kumar. The renewals had been effected for 3 occasions from 1994 to 1997 to 2000 before the period of renewal licence. Since the first issuance was said to be in the name of a person who was other than the driver and since there was also a discrepancy regarding category of vehicle, namely, the original issue was said to be in respect of a motorcycle whereas the renewed licence was in respect of a HMV, the Court had exercised discretion to call for a report to reconcile the discrepancy and in response to a call for verification to the DTO, district Hoshiarpur, the DTO, Hoshiarpur latter had responded with the following details:
Returned is original with the remarks that the DL No. 1954/R/06-07 for HMV only valid from 16-5-2006 to 15-5-2009 stands in the name Mohinder Kumar S/o Shankar Dass VPO Shankar Nagar HSP old No. 1972/R/03-04 Old No. 3679/R/00-01 old No. 3067/R/97-98 old No. 5611/R/94-95 old No. 11966/88-89 HSR as per office record. Sd/- DTO, Hoshiarpur
This verification shows that for the renewal licence No. 5611/R/94-95, the old licence was No. 11966/88-89 HSR. This shows as incorrect the evidence as given by the RW1 that the original issue of licence to renew a licence No. 5611 was licence No. 8518, but the original issue was licence No. 11966. When the Court was attempting to secure a scope for reconciling the discrepancy and it obtained a clarification from DTO Hoshiarpur, the Tribunal could not have made meaningless the verification obtained through the DTO. The verification shows that the original issue had been in the name of Mohinder Kumar himself. I would take the verification report from the Apex Authority of the DTO office as the document that ought to have been relied on by the Tribunal. There was, therefore, a valid driving licence at the time of accident and insurance company ought to have been made liable to indemnify the owner and the driver. The finding rendered by the Tribunal exonerating the insurance company is, therefore, set aside.
2. As regards the quantum of compensation determined, the evidence was that the deceased was 55 years and 7 months at the time of accident. The Tribunal took the income after deduction of income tax at Rs. 1,33,282/- per year and adopted a multiplier of 11. The tribunal has not provided for any deduction for personal expenses. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the insurance company pleads that the appropriate multiplier must only be 9. While the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the claimants contends that multiplier of 9 would be adopted for the age group of 56 to 60. It is not too clear from the judgment of whether the age group referred to in the scale of compensation in
