Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: August 16, 2022 at 21:26 IST
The Himachal Pradesh High Court has observed that the claimants’ inability to provide documentary proof of the deceased’s monthly income should not be used as justification for using the lowest tier of the minimum wage when calculating income.
While reviewing the appeal filed by an insurance company challenging the Claims Tribunal’s decision of Rs. 15,85,000/- in compensation to the grieving mother, Justice Jyotsna Rewal Dua made an observation..
The Appellant argued that the award should be computed at the minimum wage rate, or Rs. 7,000 per month, since there was no documentation evidence to support the Tribunal’s assessment of the deceased’s monthly income of 10,000.
The mother of the deceased told the court that her son’s only source of income was farming, which brought in Rs. 10,000 per month.
In addition, she claimed that had he survived, he would have earned far more than Rs. 10,000 per month because he had completed a two-year NCVT course in mechanic (motor vehicle) trade.
In light of this, the Court observed that as the deceased held an NCVT CTS course diploma in the mechanic (motor vehicle) trade from a government industrial training institute and was also engaged in agricultural work, an accurate assessment of his monthly income at the age of 25 was Rs. 10,000.
It was decided in Chandra alias Chanda alias Chandra Ram & Anr. vs. Mukesh Kumar Yadav & Ors. that, in the absence of a salary certificate, the minimum wage notification could serve as a yardstick, but it could not serve as the only basis for determining the deceased’s income.
It is necessary to make some educated guesses in the absence of documentary proof that is on file. But at the same time the guesswork for assessing the income of the deceased should not be totally detached from reality.
Accordingly, the court dismissed the petition.