MUNICIPAL CORPORATION Vs. PADMINI GOPINATH AYANGAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal preferred by the Municipal Corporation of Pune against the award made by the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal in Claim Application No. 187 of 1980. The respondent was the claimant and had claimed compensation of Rs. 50,000 on the ground of the negligence of the employees of the Pune Municipal Transport. This was on the ground that while she was getting down from the bus, the conductor of the bus started the bus without waiting for her to get down. As a result of this she fell down from the bus and was caught behind the rear wheel of the bus sustaining ghastly injuries. She had to undergo five operations and was hospitalised for nearly four months.

(2.) THE defence of the Municipal Corporation was that the respondent herself was negligent inasmuch as she was trying to get down from the bus without waiting for the bus to come to a halt.

(3.) THE learned Advocate General who appears in support of the appeal has made available for my perusal copies of the depositions given in the Court below He has contended that looking to the probabilities of the case and the nature of the accident, the case of the Municipal Corporation must commend itself to the Court. In suggesting this the learned Advocate General thought that unless the claimant had herself tried to alight from the bus before it stopped she could not have been run over by the rear wheel of the vehicle. In my opinion, this is a total misreading of the evidence and the probabilities arising from the same. Whether a person gets down from a moving vehicle or whether the vehicle starts before the passenger gets down, the nature of the injury will not be different. Moreover, in the instant case there is nothing to rebut the sworn testimony given by the claimant. Coupled with this are the admissions of the bus conductor.