RAM PARTAP Vs. RADHEY SHYAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) OWNER of Truck No. HRT 8711, Ram Partap, has filed this appeal impugning the Award of Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Rohtak (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal') awarding compensation of Rs. 58,000 to the respondents herein, who are the unfortunate parents of one Charanjit Singh.

(2.) ON 21.6.1986, said Charanjit Singh, aged little less than 20 years, died in an accident while travelling in the truck referred to above driven by one Raghunandan of District Hissar. Deceased Charanjit Singh was a student of B.Com. at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak. The truck, while proceeding from Rohtak to Delhi, overturned in the vicinity of village Kherian, As a result of this, deceased Charanjit Singh and other persons travelling in the said truck received injuries. Deceased Charanjit Singh was shifted to Medical College and Hospital, Rohtak, where he breathed his last on the same night. His body, after postmortem, was disposed of as unclaimed but later was identified from the photograph by his parents. They, accordingly, filed a petition seeking Rs. 2,50,000 as compensation on account of death of their son.

(3.) THE Tribunal, thereafter, went ahead to determine if the deceased, Charanjit Singh, was an employee on the truck or was travelling as a passenger. The Tribunal noticed that deceased Charanjit Singh was a student of B.Com. and that his father was running a hotel in Bengal. It also came in the evidence that the deceased had gone to meet his parents in Bengal though he was studying in Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak and had commenced return journey from Bengal on 18.6.1986. Noticing this evidence, the Tribunal rightly disbelieved the version given by driver Raghunandan that the deceased Charanjit Singh was found standing on the canal bank at Hissar on 16.6.1986 and that he had approached the driver For employment. The version of the driver that he had then introduced the deceased to the owner Ram Partap (appellant) on 17.6.1986 and that he was engaged on the said date, on the face of it, is false and advanced only to escape liability that appellant owner was likely to incur on account of making a person to travel as a passenger. The Tribunal had rightly noticed serious chinks in this version besides finding that the appellant and driver of the truck had not challenged the version brought on record by the father of Charanjit Singh that he had commenced return journey from Bengal on 18.6.1986. The Tribunal is perfectly justified in coming to the conclusion that the version given by driver and owner of the truck (appellant) regarding employment of deceased Charanjit Singh is totally false. It has rightly been observed by the Tribunal that a person who was studying in B Com. at University and whose father was running a hotel in Bengal could not be expected to seek employment as a conductor on a truck. The case, as set up by the appellant owner that deceased Charanjit Singh had met the driver of the truck at Hissar to seek employment was also totally false as the deceased who was a student at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak could not be expected to travel to Hissar. Finding that the stand of the appellant and the driver of the truck to be false, the Tribunal rightly held deceased was travelling in the truck as a passenger and was not an employee.