Allowed

Bathinda Bus Company v. Gian Kaur and Ors.

Punjab & Haryana HC11 Aug 2010FAO/3642/2008

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

The High Court allowed an appeal challenging a Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal award. The court held that the owner representative's bona fide belief regarding the driver's license was sufficient to negate deliberate breach, making the insurer wholly liable despite gaps in license verification evidence regarding the renewal transaction. The Tribunal's award failing to provide indemnity was set asi

What did the court decide?

The appeal was allowed; the Tribunal's award was set aside insofar as it denied indemnity; the insurer is made wholly liable to satisfy the award.

Bathinda Bus Company Vs Gian Kaur and Ors. — Consumer Protection | Punjab & Haryana HC (2010)

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FAO No.3642 of 2008

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IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH

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FAO No.3642 of 2008 Date of Decision. 11.08.2010

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Bathinda Bus Company, through its owner/partner/proprietor, Harvinder Singh son of Jagjit Singh resident of Kothi No.465, Model Town, Bathinda

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......Appellant

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Versus

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Gian Kaur wife of Mukhtiar Singh resident of village Tungwali Tehsil and District Bathinda and others

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......Respondents

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Present: Ms. Radhika Suri, Advocate for the appellant.

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Mr. Ravinder Arora, Advocate for the insurance company.

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CORAM:HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN

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Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ?

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To be referred to the Reporters or not ?

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Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?

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K. KANNAN J.(ORAL)

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The representative of owner is on appeal challenging the award that has provided a right of recovery to the insurer. The contentions of the learned counsel are two-fold. One, the insurer had not discharged the burden that the licence which had been issued at Indore to the driver and that had been subsequently renewed at Bathinda was fake.

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The attempt of the insurer at the trial was that the register containing entry No.9095/Indore had been issued to a person by name Bheru Lal and that the licence had been issued for a heavy motor vehicle. In the cross-examination, he admitted that the

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FAO No.3642 of 2008

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register which he had brought was of the year 2000 and registers for the period earlier had not been brought. The year of issue obtains significance only by the fact that the driver had obtained a licence from Indore for a period earlier to 2000 and the renewal of licence itself had been done at Bathinda in the year 1997.

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The evidence given by RW-2, the Clerk at Indore, brought out a certain ambiguity that the licence No.9085 had not been issued in favour of the driver but he also stated that the particular entry was in relation to a period of a licence issued subsequent to 2000. When the contention of the driver was that the renewal had been done at Bathinda in the year 1997, it must have been taken that the original must have been issued earlier. The register from the particular time when the original licence was said to have been issued must have been also brought before the Court to dispel the ambiguity that even for the particular period when the driver is said to have taken a licence, the licence had indeed not been issued in his favour. The non-production of the particular register for the year of issue, which the driver claimed that it had been done in his name assumes significance in this case.

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Even without splitting hair on whether the licence had been fake or not, here was an illustration of a representative of owner taking the witness stand to state that he had verified the licence at the time when he gave the employment about the same. This bona fide belief is itself sufficient to prove that there had been no deliberate breach on his part and the insurer could become liable. This aspect of the relevance of the bona fide was also

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FAO No.3642 of 2008

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considered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in National Insurance Co

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v Swaran Singh (2004) 3 SCC 297.

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The award of the Tribunal would require, therefore, to be

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set aside in so far as it fails to provide the indemnity to the insured.

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The appeal by the representative of the owner is allowed making the

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insurer wholly liable to satisfy the award.

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(K. KANNAN) JUDGE

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August 11, 2010 Pankaj*

Bathinda Bus Company v. Gian Kaur and Ors.

Case brief

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Bathinda Bus Company v. Gian Kaur and Ors.

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