Bindwati Devi and Others vs Virender Shah and Others

Jitendra Chauhan, J.—The present appeal has been filed by the appellants/claimants against the impugned award dated 14.11.2011 passed by the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Chandigarh (for short ''the Tribunal''). The learned counsel for the appellants contends that the learned Tribunal had erred in holding that the offending vehicle was not involved in the accident. She refers to the statements of PW-1 Bindwati and PW-2 Vikas Kumar contend that the deceased was a permanent driver on the offending vehicle i.e. Mahindra Jeep No. CH-03-S-2950. It is further contended that the DDRs Ex. P-2 and Ex. P-3 are sufficient to prove that the death of deceased occurred while driving the offending vehicle.

The Learned counsel further contends that the learned Tribunal has wrongly held that the appellants were not entitled to the compensation being married daughters of the deceased. The claim petition was initially preferred by the mother of the deceased who died during the pendency thereof, and the appellants being daughters of the deceased brought themselves on record as legal representatives of the deceased-claimant.

Heard.

From the perusal of the impugned award, it is made out that the post mortem report of the deceased Ex. RW-3/A did not mention the cause of death. The claimants also could not produce any eye witness of the accident. In the statement of PW-2 Vikas Kumar, it has been stated that the deceased was found dead at about 8.00 a.m. while on the steering of the offending jeep. However, this statement is not sufficient to prove that the death in question occurred due to any accident. This is also not a eye witness.

It is not in dispute that the claim petition was filed under Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicles Act and the claimants were required to prove rash and negligence driving and the claimants were only to prove the factum of the accident. However, mere discovery of the dead body of the deceased from the offending vehicle is not sufficient to prove the accident. In the DDR Ex. P-2, Registration of the offending vehicle has been mentioned as CH-03-F-2950 whereas, the Registration of the offending vehicle is CH-03-S-2950.

From the above discussion, it can safely be inferred that the claimants have failed to prove the involvement of the offending vehicle in the accident. The appellants were not party in the claim petition. Therefore, they being major married sisters of the deceased, residing with their respective in-laws, are not entitled to the compensation as has been held by the Hon''ble Supreme Court in Sarla Verma v. DTC (2009(3)155 P.L.R. 22 (SC). Therefore, in the considered opinion of this Court, the appellants have been rightly held entitled to the compensation in terms of Section 140 of the Act as no loss of dependency has been caused to the appellants.

No merit.

Dismissed.