Bimla Rani and Ors. vs Om Prakash and Ors.

Heard counsel for appellants.

This F.A.F.O, is directed against the impugned order dated 4 51993 passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Mathura rejecting the application of the appellants for condonation of delay in filing the claim petition.

The appellants filed claim petition for compensation on account of death of Vikram Singh in a fatal accident on 5111990 sub section (3) of Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act (briefly the Act) was deleted with effect from 14111994 by Act No. 54 of 1994. Before the deletion, subsection (3) was as follows:

"No application for such compensation shall be entertained unless it is made within six months of the occurrence of the accident

Provided that the Claims Tribunal may entertain the application after the expiry of the said period of sk months but not later than twelve months if it is satisfied that the applicant was prevented by sufficient cause from making the application in time."

On account of omission of subsection (3) the counsel for the claimants urged before the Claims Tribunal that the limitation having been deleted, the claim petition could not be said to be barred by limitation. Such plea was rejected by the Claims Tribunal observing as follows:

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This argument is not tenable in area of the scheme of the Act, I find that the Tribunal cannot entertain a petition presented after the expiry of 12 months from the date of the accident. This provision restricts the power of the Tribunal to entertain a petition even on the investigation occurrence of the accident."

This question came up for consideration before the Apex Court in Dhenna Lal v. D.P. Vijayvarigiya & others JT 1996 (5) SC 601. In this case the Court held that the effect of the Amending Act is that w.e.f. 14111994 there is no limitation for filing claims before the Tribunal in respect of any accident.

The Court then continued to observe in para 7 at page 604 as under:

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From the amending Act it does not appear that the said sub section (3) has been deleted retrospectively. But at the same time there is nothing in the amending Act to show that benefit of deletion of subsection (3) of Section 166 is not to be extended to pending claim petitions where is plea of limitation has been raised ..................................................whether a claim petition filed after 14111994 can be rejected by the Tribunal on the ground of limitation saying that the period of twelve months which had been prescribed when sub section (3) of Section 166 was in force having expired the right to prefer, the claim petition had been extinguished and shall not be revived after deletion of subsection (3) of Section 166 w.e.f. 141194. According to us the answer should be in negative when subsection (3) of Section 166 has been omitted, then the Tribunal has to entertain a claim petition without taking note of the date on which such accident had taken place. The claim petitions cannot be thrown out on the ground that such claim petitions were barred by time when sub section (3) of Section 166 was in force."

From the above authority, it is amply clear that omission of subsection (3) of Section 166 of the Act was not operative only retrospectively but that the benefit of omission could be taken by the claimants whose petitions were pending then and whose petitions related to the accidents having taken place before 14111994.

After deletion of subsection (3) of Section 166, legal position is that there was no limitation at all for filing the claim petition and, therefore, the Claims Tribunal was in error in holding that despite the omission of subsection (3) of Section 166, the limitation of twelve months will continue to operate and that was inflexible.

For these reasons, the F.A.F.O. succeeds and is allowed. The impugned order dated 451993 is set aside. The claim petition is remitted to the Claims Tribunal with a direction that the same will be decided by the Claims Tribunal on merits.