15. The compensation under the head of pecuniary loss caused to the appellants is calculated on the principle of loss of earnings and can be assessed on basis of the method discussed in Kamla Devi, Varinder Prasad etc. As observed in Varinder Prasad, on the basis of Kamla Devi, i) for assessment of the pecuniary loss of dependency, the income of parents can be taken as a standard measure for arriving at the expected annual income of the children and ii) the method of calculating the compensation for pecuniary loss of dependency depends upon the potential earning capacity of the deceased, had she/he attained adulthood. The appellant no.1, who is father of the deceased, was stated to be earning Rs.700-800 per day on the day of incident, by plying a battery-operated rickshaw and after deducting his expenses, the net monthly income of the appellant no.1 could be assessed at Rs.15,000/-. The appellant no.2, who is mother of the deceased, had no earnings. The deceased was aged about 12 years at the time of his death. The income of the appellant no.1 for calculating the compensation would be taken as income of the child i.e. the deceased. It is presumed that the deceased would have earned at least what the appellant no.1 was earning. Accordingly, the multiplicand would be the expected annual income of the deceased less what he needed for himself. It would be appropriate after considering future increase in income of the appellant no.1, to apply and adopt the multiplicand factor of 1.5 to set off the effects of inflation and erosion of the value of the money. As the deceased would have grown up, his personal expenses would have risen. The contribution to the household would not have exceeded half of his income.
