NATIONAL INSURANCE CO LTD Vs. S SARADA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner National Insurance Co. Ltd. has filed this petition under section 173 (1) of the Motor Vehicles Act, seeking condonation of delay of 253 days in filing the civil miscellaneous appeal against the judgment passed by Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (Second Small Causes Court), Chennai in M.C.O.P. No. 1451 of 2004 dated 27/11/2007.

(2.) BASKARA Rao, Administrative Officer of the petitioner insurance company has filed an affidavit setting out the reasons for the delay in preferring the appeal. Admittedly, the judgment was delivered on 27/11/2007, copy application was made on 30/11/2007 and copies were made ready on 1/2/2008 and delivered on 2/2/2008. They by way of procedure adopted in the Divisional Office, for deciding the fact whether to prefer an appeal, certified copies of deposition of witnesses were to be obtained and on careful examination, it was decided to prefer an appeal by last week of March 2008. Unfortunately, thereafter during the exercise of annual audit and review, the file relating to this claim got mixed up with the other closed files and it could be traced only after some time. In the meantime, as attachment proceedings were taken by the opposite party, a cheque for total amount of the award was also handed over to the court bailiff on 11.2.2008. A letter dated 29.12.2008 being sent to the counsel, he had prepared the appeal papers and filed it on 12.1.2009. In the said process, there had been delay of 253 days in preferring the appeal.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner insurance company submitted that the insurance company being a public sector organization, procedures and practices of processing claim and appeal against awards have been set up and the considerations are made at various levels and administrative exigencies are to be followed.