THE HONBLE SRI JUSTICE U. DURGA PRASAD RAO
M.A.C.M.A No.646 of 2009
29-01-2015
The National Insurance Company Limited, Rep. by its Authorised Signatory,
Regional Office (Legal Cell), Secunderabad..... Appellant
Mandiga Krishna and another.. Respondents
Counsel for Appellant: Sri Agasthya Sarma
Counsel for Respondent No.1: Sri V. Tulasi Reddy
^Counsel for Respondent No.2: Sri P. Amarender Reddy
<Gist:
>Head Note:
? Cases referred:
1)2010 ACJ 455 (SC)
HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE U. DURGA PRASAD RAO
M.A.C.M.A. No.646 of 2009
JUDGMENT:
Aggrieved by the Award dated 06.07.2006 in O.P.No.571 of 2002
passed by the Chairman, M.A.C.T-cum-District Judge, Nizamabad (for
short the Tribunal), the 2nd respondent in the O.P/National Insurance
Company Limited preferred the instant MACMA.
2 a) On factual side, on 21.04.2002 at about 1:45p.m, when the claimant
was travelling in the lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5455 as labourer from
Nizampet to Nanded and when it reached Narsingraopally cross road, the
driver of the lorry drove at high speed and in a rash and negligent manner
and dashed another lorry which was coming from opposite direction. In the
resultant accident, the claimant sustained lacerated injuries on fore head,
both thighs and injuries on back, left side and back side of chest and upper
arm. It is averred that the accident was occurred due to the fault of driver of
the lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5455. With these averments, the claimant filed
O.P.No.571 of 2002 under Section 166 of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988
against respondents 1 and 2, who are owner and insurer of the offending
lorry and claimed Rs.1,50,000/- as compensation.
b) Respondent No.1 remained ex parte.
c) Respondent No.2/Insurance Company filed counter denying all the
material averments made in the petition and urged to put the claimant in
strict proof of the same. R.2 further denied the age, avocation and income
of the claimant. It further denied that the driver of the lorry bearing No.AP
9 T 5455 had valid and effective driving licence and was authorised to
drive the lorry. Finally R.2 contended that the compensation claimed is
highly excessive and thus prayed to dismiss the O.P.
d) During trial, PW.1 was examined and Exs.A1 to A8 were marked on
behalf of claimant. RW.1 was examined and Exs.B.1 and B.2 were marked
on behalf of 2nd respondent.
e) The Tribunal on appreciation of both oral and documentary evidence
on record, has awarded total compensation of Rs.22,020/- with costs and
interest at 7.5% p.a under different heads as follows:
For injuries Rs.20,000-00
Pain and suffering Rs. 2,020-00
-----------------
Total Rs.22,020-00
-----------------
Hence, the appeal by Insurance Company.
3) The parties in this appeal are referred as they stood before the
Tribunal.
4) Heard arguments of Sri Agasthya Sarma, learned counsel for
appellant/ Insurance Company, Sri V.Tulasi Reddy, learned counsel for
respondent No.1/claimant and Sri P.Amarender Reddy, learned counsel for
respondent No.2.
5) Challenging the award, learned counsel for appellant made an
interesting argument. His grievance is not in respect of quantum of
compensation but on the issue about the involvement of the lorry bearing
No.AP 9 T 5455 in the accident. His argument is that the lorry bearing
No.AP 9 T 5455 was in fact not involved in the accident but some other
lorry, probably lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5485 was involved in the accident
and in fact the said number was initially mentioned in Ex.A.1FIR but
some how during the course of investigation, said number was corrected
and mentioned as lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5455 and correction of 8 as
5 is clearly discernible in Ex.A.1.
a) His further submission is that as per Ex.A.1, the accident was
occurred at about 1:45 pm on 21.04.2002 and FIR was also lodged within
short time thereafter but neither the owner nor the police informed this fact
to the insurer. He submitted that under Section 158(6) of M.V. Act a duty
is cast on police as well insurer to submit the information relating to the
accident to the Claims Tribunal having jurisdiction to try the said case and
also to the insurer. In the instant case, since neither the police nor insured
furnished particulars of the accident to the insurer immediately after
registration of the FIR, the Insurance Company lost a valuable opportunity
to engage its surveyor to investigate the fact whether the lorry bearing
No.AP 9 T 5455 was indeed involved in the accident or not. Due to lack of
in time information, the Insurance Company was deprived of that
opportunity and now it is made liable to pay compensation. If information
relating to accident is furnished to the insurer in time, there will be another
advantage to it to negotiate with the victim and pay the agreed
compensation in time and thereby avoid payment of heavy interest. He
thus on one hand prayed to allow the appeal on the ground that the insured
vehicle was not involved in the accident and on the other hand prayed to
give a direction to the police and insurer to discharge their obligation under
Section 158(6) of M.V.Act.
6) Per contra, learned counsel for 1st respondent/claimant argued that
the vehicle bearing No.AP 9 T 5455 was very much involved in the
accident and in FIR its number was mentioned as lorry bearing No.AP 9 T
5485 by mistake and the said mistake was immediately rectified and
thereafter in all the subsequent records, the correct number of the vehicle
was mentioned without any corrections but the insurer is now trying to
create mountain out of molehill by projecting the correction in FIR and
hence the appeal may be dismissed. He reported no objection for giving
direction to the police.
7) In the light of above arguments, the point for determination in this
appeal is:
Whether there are merits in this appeal to allow?
8) POINT: Sofaras involvement of the lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5455
in the accident is concerned, as per the pleadings in the OP, it is a firm case
of a complainant that when he was travelling in the lorry bearing No.AP 9
T 5455, the driver drove the vehicle in a rash and negligent manner and
dashed the opposite coming lorry bearing No.HR 38 D 7730 and caused
the accident. In evidence also he deposed in the same manner. Then
coming to Ex.A.1FIR, it was lodged by one Vittal Goud, Sarpanch of
Narsingraopally village. In his report he mentioned the crime vehicle
number as AP 9 T 5485 and later the said number was corrected as AP 9 T
5455. Be that it may, in Ex.A.3charge sheet, Ex.A.6scene of offence
panchanama and in Ex.A.7the 161 Cr.P.C statement of Sarpanch, the
number of the crime vehicle is consistently mentioned as AP 9 BT 5455
and there were no corrections in those documents. Thus it would appear
that the correction made in Ex.A.1 with regard to the crime lorry number
seems to be due to initial wrong mentioning of the vehicle number. Except
harping that the vehicle bearing No.AP 9 T 5455 was not involved in the
accident, the Insurance Company has not produced any cogent evidence in
proof of its contention. Ofcourse the reason given is that since it was not
informed of the accident at the earliest opportune time, it could not engage
a surveyor to investigate into that aspect. Be that it may, the Tribunal
basing on the other documents which reveal the number of vehicle as AP 9
T 5455 confirmed that the said vehicle was indeed involved in the accident
and negatived the contention of the insurer. I find no illegality or
irregularity in the said finding. As already observed, there is no other
evidence on record to hold that crime vehicle was not involved in the
accident. Hence I find no merits in the appeal.
9) However, that is not the end of the matter. I find truth in the
submission of learned counsel for appellant that the police and insurer are
not discharging their duties as laid down under Section 158(6) of M.V.
Act. This Court directed the Registrar (Judicial) to obtain information
from all the Principal District Judges as to whether they are receiving
intimation under Section 158(6) of M.V. Act from all the police stations
within their respective jurisdictions and the information submitted by
Registrar (Judicial) is baffling. Except one or two districts, none others are
receiving information from the Police regarding the accident particulars
after registration of FIR. This speaks volumes of apathy and utter disdain
towards the duty ordained by the law and also Supreme Court in its
judgment in Jai Prakash vs. National Insurance Company Limited and
others . In the said judgment Apex Court gave the following directions to
the police authorities.
Para 8: The Director General of Police of each State is directed
to instruct all Police Stations in his State to comply with the
provisions of Section 158(6) of the Act. For this purpose, the
following steps will have to be taken by the Station House Officers
of the jurisdictional police stations:
(i) Accident Information Report in Form No.54 of the Central
Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 ('AIR' for short) shall be submitted by
the police (Station House Officer) to the jurisdictional Motor
Vehicle Claims Tribunal, within 30 days of the registration of the
FIR. In addition to the particulars required to be furnished in Form
No. 54, the police should also collect and furnish the following
additional particulars in the AIR to the Tribunal: (i) The age of the
victims at the time of accident; (ii) The income of the victim; (iii)
The names and ages of the dependent family members.
(ii) The AIR shall be accompanied by the attested copies of the FIR,
site sketch/mahazar/photographs of the place of occurrence,
driving licence of the driver, insurance policy (and if necessary,
fitness certificate) of the vehicle and postmortem report (in case of
death) or the Injury/Wound certificate (in the case of injuries). The
names/addresses of injured or dependant family members of the
deceased should also be furnished to the Tribunal.
(iii) Simultaneously, copy of the AIR with annexures thereto shall
be furnished to the concerned insurance company to enable the
Insurer to process the claim.
(iv) The police shall notify the first date of hearing fixed by the
Tribunal to the victim (injured) or the family of the victim {in case
of death) and the driver, owner and insurer. If so directed by the
Tribunal, the police may secure their presence on the first date of
hearing.
It is very painful to observe the scant respect for the judgment of Apex
Court and lack of humane touch towards victim of accident.
10) Therefore, for proper implementation of the directions given by the
Honble Apex Court, I am inclined to supplement the following further
direction:
The Judicial First Class Magistrates are directed to accept the
charge sheets concerning to motor vehicle accidents that will be occurring
from 01.03.2015, only if the concerned police encloses a certificate issued
by the jurisdictional Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (Principal District
Court) certifying that the police have complied with the provisions of
Section 158(6) of M.V. Act in that case. Only in exceptional cases the
Judicial First Class Magistrates may accept the charge sheet without such
certificate. Upon receiving the information under Section 158(6) of
M.V.Act, the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunals shall scrupulously follow
the direction of Apex Court in Jai Prakashs case (1 supra).
11) With the above direction, this MACMA is dismissed. No costs in
the appeal.
The Registrar (Judicial) is directed to furnish copy of this judgment
to all Principal District Courts.
As a sequel, miscellaneous applications pending, if any, shall stand
closed.
_________________________
U.DURGA PRASAD RAO, J
Date: 29.01.2015
M.A.C.M.A No.646 of 2009
29-01-2015
The National Insurance Company Limited, Rep. by its Authorised Signatory,
Regional Office (Legal Cell), Secunderabad..... Appellant
Mandiga Krishna and another.. Respondents
Counsel for Appellant: Sri Agasthya Sarma
Counsel for Respondent No.1: Sri V. Tulasi Reddy
^Counsel for Respondent No.2: Sri P. Amarender Reddy
<Gist:
>Head Note:
? Cases referred:
1)2010 ACJ 455 (SC)
HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE U. DURGA PRASAD RAO
M.A.C.M.A. No.646 of 2009
JUDGMENT:
Aggrieved by the Award dated 06.07.2006 in O.P.No.571 of 2002
passed by the Chairman, M.A.C.T-cum-District Judge, Nizamabad (for
short the Tribunal), the 2nd respondent in the O.P/National Insurance
Company Limited preferred the instant MACMA.
2 a) On factual side, on 21.04.2002 at about 1:45p.m, when the claimant
was travelling in the lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5455 as labourer from
Nizampet to Nanded and when it reached Narsingraopally cross road, the
driver of the lorry drove at high speed and in a rash and negligent manner
and dashed another lorry which was coming from opposite direction. In the
resultant accident, the claimant sustained lacerated injuries on fore head,
both thighs and injuries on back, left side and back side of chest and upper
arm. It is averred that the accident was occurred due to the fault of driver of
the lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5455. With these averments, the claimant filed
O.P.No.571 of 2002 under Section 166 of Motor Vehicles Act, 1988
against respondents 1 and 2, who are owner and insurer of the offending
lorry and claimed Rs.1,50,000/- as compensation.
b) Respondent No.1 remained ex parte.
c) Respondent No.2/Insurance Company filed counter denying all the
material averments made in the petition and urged to put the claimant in
strict proof of the same. R.2 further denied the age, avocation and income
of the claimant. It further denied that the driver of the lorry bearing No.AP
9 T 5455 had valid and effective driving licence and was authorised to
drive the lorry. Finally R.2 contended that the compensation claimed is
highly excessive and thus prayed to dismiss the O.P.
d) During trial, PW.1 was examined and Exs.A1 to A8 were marked on
behalf of claimant. RW.1 was examined and Exs.B.1 and B.2 were marked
on behalf of 2nd respondent.
e) The Tribunal on appreciation of both oral and documentary evidence
on record, has awarded total compensation of Rs.22,020/- with costs and
interest at 7.5% p.a under different heads as follows:
For injuries Rs.20,000-00
Pain and suffering Rs. 2,020-00
-----------------
Total Rs.22,020-00
-----------------
Hence, the appeal by Insurance Company.
3) The parties in this appeal are referred as they stood before the
Tribunal.
4) Heard arguments of Sri Agasthya Sarma, learned counsel for
appellant/ Insurance Company, Sri V.Tulasi Reddy, learned counsel for
respondent No.1/claimant and Sri P.Amarender Reddy, learned counsel for
respondent No.2.
5) Challenging the award, learned counsel for appellant made an
interesting argument. His grievance is not in respect of quantum of
compensation but on the issue about the involvement of the lorry bearing
No.AP 9 T 5455 in the accident. His argument is that the lorry bearing
No.AP 9 T 5455 was in fact not involved in the accident but some other
lorry, probably lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5485 was involved in the accident
and in fact the said number was initially mentioned in Ex.A.1FIR but
some how during the course of investigation, said number was corrected
and mentioned as lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5455 and correction of 8 as
5 is clearly discernible in Ex.A.1.
a) His further submission is that as per Ex.A.1, the accident was
occurred at about 1:45 pm on 21.04.2002 and FIR was also lodged within
short time thereafter but neither the owner nor the police informed this fact
to the insurer. He submitted that under Section 158(6) of M.V. Act a duty
is cast on police as well insurer to submit the information relating to the
accident to the Claims Tribunal having jurisdiction to try the said case and
also to the insurer. In the instant case, since neither the police nor insured
furnished particulars of the accident to the insurer immediately after
registration of the FIR, the Insurance Company lost a valuable opportunity
to engage its surveyor to investigate the fact whether the lorry bearing
No.AP 9 T 5455 was indeed involved in the accident or not. Due to lack of
in time information, the Insurance Company was deprived of that
opportunity and now it is made liable to pay compensation. If information
relating to accident is furnished to the insurer in time, there will be another
advantage to it to negotiate with the victim and pay the agreed
compensation in time and thereby avoid payment of heavy interest. He
thus on one hand prayed to allow the appeal on the ground that the insured
vehicle was not involved in the accident and on the other hand prayed to
give a direction to the police and insurer to discharge their obligation under
Section 158(6) of M.V.Act.
6) Per contra, learned counsel for 1st respondent/claimant argued that
the vehicle bearing No.AP 9 T 5455 was very much involved in the
accident and in FIR its number was mentioned as lorry bearing No.AP 9 T
5485 by mistake and the said mistake was immediately rectified and
thereafter in all the subsequent records, the correct number of the vehicle
was mentioned without any corrections but the insurer is now trying to
create mountain out of molehill by projecting the correction in FIR and
hence the appeal may be dismissed. He reported no objection for giving
direction to the police.
7) In the light of above arguments, the point for determination in this
appeal is:
Whether there are merits in this appeal to allow?
8) POINT: Sofaras involvement of the lorry bearing No.AP 9 T 5455
in the accident is concerned, as per the pleadings in the OP, it is a firm case
of a complainant that when he was travelling in the lorry bearing No.AP 9
T 5455, the driver drove the vehicle in a rash and negligent manner and
dashed the opposite coming lorry bearing No.HR 38 D 7730 and caused
the accident. In evidence also he deposed in the same manner. Then
coming to Ex.A.1FIR, it was lodged by one Vittal Goud, Sarpanch of
Narsingraopally village. In his report he mentioned the crime vehicle
number as AP 9 T 5485 and later the said number was corrected as AP 9 T
5455. Be that it may, in Ex.A.3charge sheet, Ex.A.6scene of offence
panchanama and in Ex.A.7the 161 Cr.P.C statement of Sarpanch, the
number of the crime vehicle is consistently mentioned as AP 9 BT 5455
and there were no corrections in those documents. Thus it would appear
that the correction made in Ex.A.1 with regard to the crime lorry number
seems to be due to initial wrong mentioning of the vehicle number. Except
harping that the vehicle bearing No.AP 9 T 5455 was not involved in the
accident, the Insurance Company has not produced any cogent evidence in
proof of its contention. Ofcourse the reason given is that since it was not
informed of the accident at the earliest opportune time, it could not engage
a surveyor to investigate into that aspect. Be that it may, the Tribunal
basing on the other documents which reveal the number of vehicle as AP 9
T 5455 confirmed that the said vehicle was indeed involved in the accident
and negatived the contention of the insurer. I find no illegality or
irregularity in the said finding. As already observed, there is no other
evidence on record to hold that crime vehicle was not involved in the
accident. Hence I find no merits in the appeal.
9) However, that is not the end of the matter. I find truth in the
submission of learned counsel for appellant that the police and insurer are
not discharging their duties as laid down under Section 158(6) of M.V.
Act. This Court directed the Registrar (Judicial) to obtain information
from all the Principal District Judges as to whether they are receiving
intimation under Section 158(6) of M.V. Act from all the police stations
within their respective jurisdictions and the information submitted by
Registrar (Judicial) is baffling. Except one or two districts, none others are
receiving information from the Police regarding the accident particulars
after registration of FIR. This speaks volumes of apathy and utter disdain
towards the duty ordained by the law and also Supreme Court in its
judgment in Jai Prakash vs. National Insurance Company Limited and
others . In the said judgment Apex Court gave the following directions to
the police authorities.
Para 8: The Director General of Police of each State is directed
to instruct all Police Stations in his State to comply with the
provisions of Section 158(6) of the Act. For this purpose, the
following steps will have to be taken by the Station House Officers
of the jurisdictional police stations:
(i) Accident Information Report in Form No.54 of the Central
Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 ('AIR' for short) shall be submitted by
the police (Station House Officer) to the jurisdictional Motor
Vehicle Claims Tribunal, within 30 days of the registration of the
FIR. In addition to the particulars required to be furnished in Form
No. 54, the police should also collect and furnish the following
additional particulars in the AIR to the Tribunal: (i) The age of the
victims at the time of accident; (ii) The income of the victim; (iii)
The names and ages of the dependent family members.
(ii) The AIR shall be accompanied by the attested copies of the FIR,
site sketch/mahazar/photographs of the place of occurrence,
driving licence of the driver, insurance policy (and if necessary,
fitness certificate) of the vehicle and postmortem report (in case of
death) or the Injury/Wound certificate (in the case of injuries). The
names/addresses of injured or dependant family members of the
deceased should also be furnished to the Tribunal.
(iii) Simultaneously, copy of the AIR with annexures thereto shall
be furnished to the concerned insurance company to enable the
Insurer to process the claim.
(iv) The police shall notify the first date of hearing fixed by the
Tribunal to the victim (injured) or the family of the victim {in case
of death) and the driver, owner and insurer. If so directed by the
Tribunal, the police may secure their presence on the first date of
hearing.
It is very painful to observe the scant respect for the judgment of Apex
Court and lack of humane touch towards victim of accident.
10) Therefore, for proper implementation of the directions given by the
Honble Apex Court, I am inclined to supplement the following further
direction:
The Judicial First Class Magistrates are directed to accept the
charge sheets concerning to motor vehicle accidents that will be occurring
from 01.03.2015, only if the concerned police encloses a certificate issued
by the jurisdictional Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (Principal District
Court) certifying that the police have complied with the provisions of
Section 158(6) of M.V. Act in that case. Only in exceptional cases the
Judicial First Class Magistrates may accept the charge sheet without such
certificate. Upon receiving the information under Section 158(6) of
M.V.Act, the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunals shall scrupulously follow
the direction of Apex Court in Jai Prakashs case (1 supra).
11) With the above direction, this MACMA is dismissed. No costs in
the appeal.
The Registrar (Judicial) is directed to furnish copy of this judgment
to all Principal District Courts.
As a sequel, miscellaneous applications pending, if any, shall stand
closed.
_________________________
U.DURGA PRASAD RAO, J
Date: 29.01.2015
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