SAROJ Vs. HET LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) In this appeal, the judgment of the High Court affirming the judgment of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Gurgaon (hereinafter referred to as Rs. the Tribunal) dismissing the claim of the claimants-Appellants has been challenged. Shortly stated, the factual conspectus is as under: Claimants-Appellants are the legal representatives of one Joginder Singh who was a young man of 34 years. An accident took place on 16.09.2005 while deceased Joginder Singh was driving a motorcycle bearing registration No. HR-26-P/9413 while going to village Nimot from village Mandavar. As per the claim, the motorcycle met with an accident as it was hit by a vehicle, Tata 207 bearing registration No. HR-38-L/6592 which was being driven in a rash and negligent manner. It is claimed that in that accident Joginder Singh died on the spot. He was claimed to be a registered medical practioner and that his monthly earning was Rs. 25,000/- approximately. Therefore, a claim was filed under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act wherein the driver Het Lal, owner of the vehicle Pramod Kumar and the Oriental Insurance Company were joined as party Respondents. The claim was opposed by the driver and he took the plea that no such accident ever took place though he admitted that he was the driver of aforementioned vehicle. In his statement, however, the owner i.e. Respondent No. 2, while opposing the claim, admitted that his vehicle was engaged in the accident in paragraph three of his written statement. The part of paragraph 3 of the written statement of Respondent No. 2 is as under:

(3.) The same plea is repeated in the written statement while replying to paragraphs 1 to 13 of the claim petition practically in the same words as stated above. The owner of the vehicle also went on to oppose the petition on the ground that the claimants-Appellants were not the only legal heirs of the deceased nor were the sufferers or dependant upon him and that they had filed the petition only to extract huge amount by way of compensation. The claims made by the claimants-Appellants in their petition about the age and income of the deceased were also denied.