Oral judgment where the High Court dismissed an insurance company's appeal on quantum and rejected an attempt to introduce new evidence of fraud, finding the appeal not maintainable without prior permission under Section 170 of the Motor Vehicle Act.
Appeal dismissed for want of maintainability; additional evidence rejected.
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
FAO No.3487 of 2002 Date of decision:24.08.2010
Oriental Insurance Company Limited
....Appellant
versus
Parveen and others
...Respondents
CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN
Present: Mr. Ashwani Talwar, Advocate, for the appellant.
Mr. Pankaj Sharma, Advocate, for respondents 7 and 8.
K.Kannan, J. (Oral)
Versus Bushan Sachdeva-(2002) 2 SCC 265 that holds that the
FAO No.3487 of 2002 - 2 -
Insurance Companies make do with public monies and, therefore, it should be taken as an aggrieved person relating to a compensation. The Hon'ble Supreme Court had in that case states thus,
“ The permissible contours of the involvement of the insurance company in the claims preferred before the Accidents Tribunals can be discerned from Section 168 of the MV Act. The nationalised insurance Companies in India are holding public money. What they have to deal with its public fund. They are accountable to the public for every pie of it. If it is held that no insurance company should feel aggrieved even if the award is seemingly unjust and that such awarded amount should go out of the public fund, it is public interest which suffers. If the insurance company has reason to believe that the award was obtained fraudulently which fact was not known to the insured, the insurance company must feel aggrieved. Any interpretation denying such aggrieved insurance companies the opportunity to seek the legal remedy of appeal should not be adopted unless there is a statutory compulsion. There is nothing in Section 173 or in the other relevant provisions of the Act which debars the insurance company from resorting to the remedy of appeal when it knows that the award is unjust.”
FAO No.3487 of 2002 - 3 -
omnibus concern that public monies have to be protected and, therefore, it should have a right of appeal on quantum also. That would mean rewriting the Act itself. If there was a case of fraud in securing the award that will be still a quite different matter. Fraud vitiates all proceedings and it may exist even outside the sphere of what Section 170 addresses. If a plea of fraud is not made in securing the award, a false evidence may not mean at all times fraud. The falsity or otherwise of the contentions ought to be best tested only on the turf of a trial Court and not at an appellate forum. The appeal is, therefore, not maintainable and it is dismissed as such.
(K.KANNAN) JUDGE 24.08.2010 sanjeev
2 issues framed by the court
Whether an insurance company can appeal against the quantum of award without taking permission under Section 170 of the Motor Vehicle Act.
Whether a plea of fraud vitiates proceedings enough to allow an appeal without prior permission under Section 170.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
United India Insurance Company Limited Versus Bushan SachdevaReferred¶16
United India Insurance Company Limited Versus Bushan Sachdeva-(2002) 2 SCC 265 · Who else cites this
Oriental Insurance Company Limited
Parveen and others
K. Kannan
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
