NATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY Vs. PAPPU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE National Insurance Company is in appeal against the award dated 7.11.2005, passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Fast Track Court, Sonepat (for brevity, 'the Tribunal'). The Tribunal has found that the unfortunate deceased Geeta was killed in the accident due to rash and negligent driving of the driver Jaswant Singh-respondent No.

(2.) HE was driving TATA-407 bearing Registration No. HR-16GA-0299, which was owned by respondent No. 4 and was insured with the appellant-Insurance Company. The accident has resulted in premature termination of life of 15 years old Geeta. The claimant-respondent Nos. 1 and 2 are her grief-stricken parents. In support of the finding that the accident was caused by rash and negligent driving of the driver of TATA-407 bearing No. HR-16GA-029, the Tribunal has placed reliance on the oral testimony of witnesses as well as the FIR. The age of the deceased has been found to be 15 years at the time of accident. The income of the deceased was claimed to be Rs. 1,500 per month as she was helping in dairy farming. However, it could not be disputed that loss of the claimant-respondent Nos. 1 and 2, who are parents was irreparable. Placing reliance on a judgment of this Court rendered in the case of Oriental Insurance Company Limited v. Inderjit Kaur I (1998) ACC 1 (SC) : 2002 (1) Accidents Compensation Judicial Reports 283, it has been held that there was no question of working out annual income in such like cases as loss to the parents is irreparable. In the cited judgment a girl of 10 years of age was killed and a sum of Rs. 1,53,000 to the parents of the girl was awarded. Accordingly, the Tribunal has awarded Rs. 1,55,000, which by no stretch of imagination could be considered to be excessive. 2. The argument of the appellant-Insurance Company that a permit/route permit was required by the offending vehicle has been rejected by holding that the statutory defences envisaged by Section 149(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for brevity, 'the Act') are although available to the appellant-Insurance Company, yet the same are required to be proved. Accordingly, the Tribunal rejected the argument by observing as under: ....No doubt, Insurance Company moved an application for seeking a direction against respondent Nos. 1 and 2 for production of route permit, but the learned Counsel for respondent Nos. 1 and 2 suffered a statement before this Tribunal that respondent No. 2 is bed ridden and as such could not be contacted to produce the route permit. As a result of this, route permit was not produced on record by respondent Nos. 1 and 2, but Insurance Company also did not make any efforts in this case to get the route permit produced or to get any record produced that the respondent No. 2 was not having a valid route permit. The circumstances attending the case are such that it cannot be held that respondent No. 2 was not having any route permit because both the parties have led shallow evidence in this regard. In the absence of there being any specific evidence no benefit can be given to the Insurance Company and it cannot be concluded that respondent No. 2 was not having a route permit when it was the bounden duty of Insurance Company to get some documents produced on record in this regard....

(3.) MR . V.K. Kapur, learned Counsel for the appellant-Insurance Company has raised the same argument before us asserting that an appropriate application for issuance of direction to the driver and owner (respondent Nos. 3 and 4 respectively) to produce the route permit was filed but the same could not be produced as owner respondent No. 4 was bed ridden and could not be contacted to produce the route permit. According to the learned Counsel an adverse inference must be drawn that owner respondent No. 4 did not possess route permit and, therefore, the defence under Section 149(2) of the Act would be fully available to the appellant- Insurance Company.