Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd v. Kulwinder Singh & Ors.

CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE L. N. MITTAL * * * Present : Mr. Vinod Chaudhri, Advocate for the petitioner. * * * L. N. MITTAL, J. (Oral) : Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. has filed the instant revision petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India impugning order dated 03.08.2010 passed by learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Karnal, thereby closing evidence of the petitioner by court order in claim petition instituted by Kulwinder Singh – respondent no.1 herein against respondents no.2 and 3 and the petitioner (respondent no.3 in the claim petition). case file. I have heard learned counsel for the petitioner and perused the C. R. No. 5881 of 2010 2 Learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently contended that the claimant was granted long period to conclude his evidence, but the petitioner was granted very short period for its evidence. The contention cannot be accepted. The claim petition was instituted on 04.03.2009.

It is not known when respondents in the claim petition put in appearance before the Claims Tribunal and when issues were framed and when the case was fixed for the first time for claimant's evidence. No such particulars have been disclosed even in the revision petition. In any event, evidence of the claimant was closed on 16.02.2010 i.e. just 11 months after the filing of the claim petition and few months must have been spent in procuring presence of the respondents in the claim petition and in completing the pleadings and framing of issues. On the other hand, the petitioner herein was also given almost six months for its evidence and in all, six effective opportunities have been given to the petitioner for its evidence. There is no explanation why the petitioner could not lead its evidence in six months by availing of six opportunities. The petitioner wants to examine Clerk from the office of District Transport Officer (DTO), Agra to depict that driving license of the driver of the offending vehicle was fake and therefore, there was breach of terms and conditions of the insurance policy and the petitioner insurer is not liable to satisfy the Award.

However, there is no explanation why the said witness was not examined when the petitioner was granted six effective opportunities by the Claims Tribunal. It may be added that petitioner has C. R. No. 5881 of 2010 3 neither furnished any list of witnesses before the Tribunal nor deposited process fee, diet money etc. for summoning the witness from the office of DTO, Agra. Consequently, the Claims Tribunal was left with no option but to close the evidence of the petitioner by court order. There is no illegality in the impugned order of the Claims Tribunal. The same does not warrant interference at the hands of this Court in exercise of power of superintendence under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. For the reasons aforesaid, I find no merit in the instant revision petition, which is accordingly dismissed in limine. September 14, 2010 monika ( L. N. MITTAL ) JUDGE