DASHMESH BUS SERVICE Vs. JAGIR KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE primary question that needs to be settled in this letters patent appeal is as to whether the filing of a claim for compensation under Section 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, which is later dismissed as withdrawn, debars the subsequent filing of a claim for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923 (for short, the Act), on the same cause of action? The following facts giving rise to it are not in dispute.

(2.) AJIT Singh, an employee of the appellant Company, while driving its bus, PUM 7105, met with an accident on December 15, 1975 and as a result thereof, died two days later, I.E., on December 17, 1975. His widow and children filed a claim for compensation under Section 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act but the same was got dismissed as withdrawn on December 15, 1976. A copy of the order of the Tribunal, Exhibit R. 15, is on the records of this case. Later, the present claim petition was filed under the Act on March 21, 1977 and one of the contentions raised in reply to it relates to its maintainability on the ground that the respondent-claimants having elected to avail of the remedy under the Motor Vehicles Act, cannot now seek the relief under the Act on the same cause of action. This, however, is not disputed that the claim for compensation was competent under both the Acts, i.e., under Section 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act and under Section 22 of the Act.

(3.) SO far as the First contention is concerned, we are of the opinion that even if the provisions of Order 23, Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure are applicable to the proceedings under the Motor Vehicles Act, the same may well debar a claimant from instituting fresh proceedings on the same pause of action under the said Act, i.e., the Motor Vehicles Act but this rule does not in any manner affect the proceedings under a different Act, i.e., the Act. As has been pointed out above, it is not in dispute before us that the claim for compensation was maintainable under both the Acts though of course the claimants could not have double payment as a result of the double proceedings. The phraseology of Section 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act makes this position amply clear. It reads as follows :