(1.) THIS appeal by the owner of the vehicle is directed against the award dated 25.04.2006, passed by the learned Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Una in M.A.C. Petition No. 48 of 2004, whereby he awarded compensation of Rs. 1,42,000/ - in favour of the claimants, who are the husband and son of deceased, Smt. Yamuna Devi. The main challenge to the award is that the learned Tribunal has erred in holding that the accident occurred due to the rash and negligent driving of the driver of the vehicle.
(2.) MR . Manoj Pathak, learned counsel for the appellant, has argued that Kushal Kumar, son of the deceased, is not telling the truth, since there are variations in what is recorded in the FIR and his statement made in Court. He submits that PW -4, Kadhu Ram, was not present at the time of accident and that the version of the respondent and his witness, Bakshish Singh (RW -2) is much more reliable and that no accident took place with the scooter. The stand of the appellant herein is that he saw Smt. Yamuna Devi lying injured and being her neighbour, he, on humanitarian grounds, arranged to have her shifted to hospital and now, he has been falsely implicated in the accident in question.
(3.) THE FIR has been proved on record by PW -1. The lodging of FIR is not denied. The accident took place at 6.15 p.m. and the FIR was lodged within a few hours, at 10.25 p.m. Thus, it is apparent that the FIR was lodged about four hours after the accident. In the FIR, which is recorded on the complaint of Kushal Kumar, one of the claimants and son of the deceased, it is recorded that Yamuna Devi had gone to cut grass and she came home and informed her son, Kushal Kumar, that she had cut two loads of grass and, therefore, she went back to carry the grass and Kushal Kumar followed her and was about 20 feet behind her. He saw a Maruti van coming from Amb side and another scooter came at a high speed from Amb side, which scooter hit his mother. The scooter driver also fell down on the spot. He has further stated that later, he came to know that the scooter driver was Mohan Lal (appellant).