NEW INDIA ASSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED Vs. K KANAGASABAPATHY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The entire thrust of the claimant's claim before the Tribunal was based upon and linked with the injuries sustained by him because of the accident and correspondingly also the extent of permanent disablement (68 per cent) caused to him by these injuries. Exh. 4 series documents and Exh. 8 documents appear to be such documents which the claimant produced before the Tribunal during the course of recording of his own statement as his own witness. Relying upon these exhibits the Tribunal awarded a sum of Rs. 4,86,000 as the compensation in favour of the claimant.

(2.) Undoubtedly, the course of action adopted by the claimant was not legally correct inasmuch as the Tribunal should not have exhibited the aforesaid documents because these documents were not properly proved by the claimant. The only way by which these documents could have been proved and hence admitted into evidence was by producing the author of the documents who could have proved the contents of the documents, identified his signature and so on and so forth. If a claimant during the course of his evidence, appearing as his own witness is allowed to produce any number of documents and also get them exhibited without the authors of the documents coming forth as a witness, proving their contents and the signature therein, such a course of action shall be against law. Even though claim petitions filed under section 166 of Motor Vehicles Act are required to be disposed of expeditiously, without insisting upon the compliance with the technicalities of law, yet established and binding principles of evidence law cannot be given a go-bye, by exhibiting documents which have not been proved at all in accordance with the provisions of evidence law, except of course such documents which are 'public documents' and which may not require their formal proof. This is one aspect of the matter.

(3.) The other aspect is with respect to the alleged injuries and the factum of permanent disablement and the extent of any such permanent disablement. There are judgments galore on this subject, including the judgments given by this court that in all injury cases unless a medical expert comes and testifies with respect to the factum of injuries, the nature and extent of the injuries and also the nature and extent of disablement, permanent or temporary, the Tribunal should not act on the basis of ipse dixit of the claimants. If the claimants do not adduce medical evidence the claim with respect to the injuries should not be allowed. Reference accordingly is drawn to the Division Bench judgment of this court in the case of Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Johar Shah, I (2002) ACC 12, wherein the following observations were made with respect to the aforesaid binding principles of law, both touching upon the legal requirement of getting the documents fully proved (in accordance with the principles of evidence law) and the examination of medical experts as witnesses in support of the factum of the injury and the nature and extent thereof. We quote: "The limited issue raised for our adjudication by the appellant insurer is with respect to the determination of the quantum of compensation based on the assessment as per the learned Tribunal with regard to the alleged injury allegedly sustained by the respondent No. 1 and the alleged disablement suffered by him on account of and as a result of the accident in question. What do we find from perusal of the judgment under appeal is that the claimant, apart from his own testimony, did not produce any evidence whatsoever to prove any fact either about any injury being suffered by him, or any disablement having been caused to him or any expenses incurred by him for the alleged treatment or for any injury. Admittedly, no doctor was produced. No other evidence, medical or otherwise, was adduced by claimant in the Tribunal in support of his claim for compensation. It is an established principle of law that if a claimant claims compensation for a wrong committed to him by a wrongdoer, he has to establish his claim with regard to such facts and figures which justify the determination of the compensation amount on the basis of the evidence adduced by the claimant in the court, specially so, in a claim petition filed under sections 144 and 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act with regard to the alleged injury received by claimant and the alleged disablement, partial or complete, suffered by him. He is under an obligation to prove the same by production of cogent evidence." The Bench went on to further observe as under: