NEW INDIA ASSURANCE COMPANY LTD Vs. K.KANAGASABAPATHY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE entire thrust of the claimant 'sclaim 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 sec. 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.) IN conclusion, referring to the value of the bald statement of claimant himself as his own witness, the Bench observed thus: