BABU Vs. REMESAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant is aggrieved as the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (for short 'the Claims Tribunal') declined to grant interim award envisaged in S.140 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short 'the Act').

(2.) S.140 is included in Chap. 10 of the Act with the title 'Liability without fault in certain cases'. The material portion of the Section is the following: "Where death or permanent disablement of any person has resulted from an accident arising out of the use of a motor vehicle or motor vehicles, the owner of the vehicle shall...... be liable to pay compensation in respect of such death or disablement in accordance with the provisions of this section".

(3.) The expression 'accident arising out of the use of a motor vehicle' has received a pragmatic interpretation from the apex Court. In the decision reported in Shivaji Dayanu Patil and another v. Smt. Vatschala Uttam More, AIR 1991 SC 1769 - their Lordships held that the expression "use of a motor vehicle" covers accidents which occur both when the vehicle is in motion and when it is stationary. "The word "use" has a wider connotation to cover the period when the vehicle is not moving and is stationary and the use of a vehicle does not cease on account of the vehicle having been rendered immobile on account of a break down or mechanical defect or accident". This was followed by a Division Bench of this Court in Sharlet Augustine v. Raveendran - 1992 (1) KLT 795 .