This appeal challenged the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal's dismissal of a compensation claim due to the appellant's failure to examine witnesses. The High Court upheld the Tribunal's decision, dismissing the appeal for lack of merit as no evidence caused an accident.
The appeal was dismissed.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
F.A.O. No. 458 of 2009
Date of Decision : April 16, 2009
Satinder Singh
.....Appellant
Versus
Deepak Sharma and others
.....Respondents
CORAM : HON'BLE MR JUSTICE T.P.S. MANN
Present : Mr. Rajesh Kumar, Advocate for Mr. Pritam Saini, Advocate
T.P.S. MANN, J.
The present appeal has been filed by the claimant for challenging the award passed by the learned Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Ambala on 4.4.2008, whereby the petition filed by him under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 for the grant of compensation was dismissed.
According to the claimant, he, alongwith his cousins, was riding on a motorcycle and met with an accident, which was caused on account of the rash and negligent driving of Maruti car bearing registration No.CH-03P-2143 by Deepak Sharma-respondent No.1.
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As a result, the claimant, alongwith his cousins, received injuries. Accordingly, he prayed for awarding him an amount of Rs.7,40,000/as compensation for the injuries received by him.
Despite service neither the driver nor the owner of the offending vehicle appeared before the learned Tribunal and they were, accordingly, proceeded against ex parte . The claim petition was contested by respondent No.3-Insurance Company, wherein the involvement of the car in question in the accident was denied.
After framing of the issues, the claimant was called upon to lead evidence but he failed to do so. Even he himself did not step into the witness box in support of the averments made in the claim petition. In view of the same, learned Tribunal dismissed the claim petition but with no order as to costs.
As is apparent from the impugned award, the claimantappellant was allowed sufficient opportunities, including last opportunity, but he did not lead any evidence. On 22.2.2008 when the claimant was granted last opportunity, he moved an application for summoning of witnesses. The said application was allowed and the claimant was required to deposit expenses with regard to one witness, which he did deposit. The expenses with respect to the doctor were to be paid directly by the PGI after deposit of the same
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by the claimant. Despite all this, neither the claimant collected summons nor made any effort for service of his witnesses. For that reason, no one appeared before the learned Tribunal so as to depose in favour of the claimant.
As per the claimant, he was accompanied by his two cousins, namely, Gurpreet Kaur and Harpreet Singh at the time of the accident. None of them was examined by the claimant. Even the claimant himself did not turn up before the Tribunal for stepping into the witness box in support of his claim petition. It was for these reasons that the learned Tribunal found no ground to adjourn the trial for recording of the statements of the claimant's witnesses.
The plea of the appellant that on account of his suffering multiple injuries in the accident, including fracture of his leg, he was bed-ridden for months together and, therefore, could not produce his evidence, cannot be accepted in view of the fact that the accident in question had taken place on 19.4.2005 and the first date fixed for recording of the claimant's evidence was after about three years, i.e. 15.1.2008. On 15.1.2008, the case was adjourned to 22.2.2008, when last opportunity was granted to the claimant to produce his evidence for 4.4.2008. On 4.4.2008, neither the claimant nor any of his summoned witnesses was present before the learned Tribunal. In such a situation, no fault can be found with the approach of the learned Tribunal in closing the evidence of the claimant.
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When no evidence is available on the file to prove that the accident occurred due to rash and negligent driving of Maruti car bearing registration No. CH-03P-2143 by respondent No.1, no relief can be granted to the claimant-appellant for being compensated for the injuries said to have been received by him.
Resultantly, there is no merit in the appeal, which is, accordingly, dismissed.
( T.P.S. MANN ) April 16, 2009 JUDGE satish
Whether to be referred to the Reporters : YES / NO
2 issues framed by the court
Whether the appeal should be allowed when the claimant failed to examine his own witnesses despite multiple opportunities.
Whether the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal erred in dismissing the claim petition due to the claimant's failure to lead evidence.
Satinder Singh
Deepak Sharma and others
T.P.S. Mann
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
