MADHU BALA Vs. SURENDER KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal has impugned the dated 11.11.2009 whereby the claim of the claimants had been rejected; issue No. 1 had been decided against the claimants; on the evidence which had been led before the Tribunal which included testimony of PW 2, the court had held that the petitioner had failed to prove that Car No. DL-4CS-1022 was involved in the accident which was being driven in a rash and negligent manner pursuant to which it had hit Narender Kumar and because of which he had died. No compensation was accordingly awarded in favour of the claimants.

(2.) APPEAL has been filed against the impugned judgment. Learned counsel for the appellants has pointed out that PW 2 was eye witness and his testimony had been wrongly ignored by the Trial Court. He was the brother of the victim and the learned Tribunal had placed emphasis upon the certain submissions which have been elicited in his cross-examination but the entirety of the evidence in the correct perspective has not been considered. It is pointed that the criminal record i.e. FIR which had been lodged against the driver and the owner of the offending vehicle, MLC prepared on the same of the victim Narender Kumar; his postmortem report; the charge-sheet were all documents which had been filed before the Tribunal which had not been considered. They were illegally ignored. Learned counsel for the appellant has placed reliance upon a judgment of the Apex Court reported in 2009 (5) Scale 706 titled as Bimla Devi and Ors vs. Himachal Road Transport Corpn. and Ors. to substantiate his submission that the claimants in a petition under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act (MVA) have to establish their case on the touchstone of preponderance of probabilities; standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt cannot be applied. Reliance has also been placed on 2009 ACJ 287 National Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Pushpa Rana and Ors. to substantiate the submission for certified copy of the record of the criminal record that is FIR, recovery and medical inspection report are documents which can be sufficient proof to conclude that the driver was negligent. There is no dispute to this fact.