TAMANNA SHARMA Vs. NEW INDIA INSURANCE COMPANY LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition, the petitioner challenges the order of the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Chandigarh (in execution proceedings), dtd. 16/12/2011, as also the recovery certificates ordered to be issued by that Court on 12/12/2013 and 21/3/2015. Vide the impugned order dtd. 16/12/2011 (passed on the objections filed by the petitioner herein who is stated to be the legal heir of judgment debtor no.2, i.e. Sukhdev Singh, owner of the vehicle involved in the accident), it has been held that the insurance company would have the right to recover the compensation awarded by the Tribunal, not necessarily by filing a separate suit for that purpose but even in execution proceedings ongoing in the Tribunal.

(2.) The aforesaid was held on a contention raised by the petitioner, to the effect that any compensation sought to be recovered from the owner of the vehicle or from his legal heirs, could only be by way of a separate suit and not in execution proceedings. To hold as above, the learned executing court relied upon a Supreme Court judgment in Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Nanjappan and others, AIR 2004 SC 1630, from which learned counsel for the respondent has referred to paragraph 8 before this court, which reads as under:-