‘By no stretch of imagination’: Court rejects claim that dead pillion rider caused crash, awards Rs 12 lakh to family

Justice Amarinder Singh Grewal held that the victim was merely riding as a pillion passenger on the two-wheeler, and the entire physical control of the vehicle was in the hands of the driver.

‘Accident happened due to fault of scooterist’

• On July 10, 2000, at around 10:00 am, the victim Jai Kanwar was going from Rohtak to the village of Assan while riding pillion on a scooter driven by Manoj Kumar.
• When they reached Sonipat Road, a jeep driven by one of the accused was ahead of them.
• The jeep driver suddenly applied the brakes without signaling, and to avoid hitting the jeep, the scooter driver turned right to overtake it. At that moment, one of the accused came from the opposite side in a Tata Sumo at high speed and hit the scooter.
• The victim suffered serious injuries due to the accident and was taken to the hospital. After staying under medical care for twenty days, the victim passed away on July 30, 2000.
• Regarding this incident, an FIR was registered on July 27, 2000, at police station Sadar, Rohtak, following which the accused contested the claim in the MACT.
• The tribunal held that the accident had happened due to the fault of the scooterist and that the claimants were not able to prove any negligence by the accused drivers.
• The claim under Section 166 (compensation for death or bodily injury) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, was rejected by the tribunal and instead granted Rs 50,000 under Section 140 (compensation under principle of no-fault liability) as per the principle of ‘no fault liability.’
• Aggrieved by the said award, the claimants appealed before the high court for modification and enhancement of compensation.

‘Tribunal erred in blaming victim’

Advocate Kulvir Narwal, appearing for the claimants, contended that the award was perverse and the tribunal had erred in shifting the entire blame onto the scooterist, having completely ignored the negligence of the offending drivers.

It was argued that the tribunal overlooked the fact that the jeep driver had applied sudden brakes and that the Tata Sumo was being driven at a reckless speed in a school zone.

It was further urged that the testimony of the eyewitness and the scooter driver, Manoj Kumar, was wrongly discarded on minor and technical contradictions.

The counsel heavily stressed that the tribunal erred in restricting the compensation to a mere Rs 50,000 under Section 140 of the Act on account of ‘no-fault liability’ instead of deciding the claim under Section 166.

It was also argued that the dependency on the victim was completely ignored as well, even though he was a permanent employee as a lower division clerk with the Haryana Electricity Board, drawing a gross monthly salary of Rs 7,591.

The counsel also highlighted that the tribunal left the widow and minor children of the victim without financial support, and altogether omitted the medical expenses incurred during his days of hospitalisation, as well as the law-based awards under the heads of loss of company and funeral expenses.

On these grounds, the counsel prayed that the appeal be allowed, and the compensation be enhanced substantially with interest.

‘Award passed after due consideration of evidence’

Advocates Vishwajit Bedi, Ankit Kumar Sangwan, and Pradeep Goyal, appearing for the insurance companies concerned, urged that the award passed by the tribunal does not suffer from any illegality or perversity and was passed after due consideration of evidence.

It was further submitted that the findings recorded by the tribunal were well-reasoned and did not call for any interference by this court. Consequently, it was prayed that the appeal should be dismissed.

‘Vitim was merely a pillion rider’

The Punjab and Haryana High Court ruled that “absence of fault on the part of Jai Kanwar does not lower the liability of the wrongdoers; it amplifies it” and that the tribunal’s order suffered from illegality and the misapplication of legal principles of motor accident compensation claims.

It was further said that even if the version decided by the tribunal that the “scooter driver Manoj Kumar was negligent while attempting to overtake the jeep” was accepted, the said negligence could not be by default assigned to the victim, as he was merely a pillion rider.

The court pointed out that there had been no pleading or evidence that claimed that the victim had contributed to the accident in any manner, as the record reflected that it was Manoj who was in control of the scooter and had attempted the overtake leading to the collision.

It was also discussed that the delay in filing the FIR did not affect the validity of the claim, as the “immediate priority of a grieving family is naturally to cope with the shock of bereavement and perform final rituals rather than rushing to a police station.”

Lastly, while taking into account the fact that the victim was 46-years-old at the time of the accident, was employed as cashier-cum-clerk at Haryana Electricity Board, and left behind a widow and two minor sons as dependents, the court calculated Rs 12.92 lakh to be the total compensation to be paid to the claimants.

The award of the tribunal was modified accordingly.