Himachal Pradesh State Civil Supplies Corporation vs The United India Insurance Company Limited

Deepak Gupta, J.

CMPs No. 217 and 218 of 2009

Heard. For the reasons stated in the applications, the same are allowed and disposed of.

Civil Revision No. 11 of 2011a/w Civil Revision No. 12 of 2011

These two revisions are being disposed of by a common order since common question of law and facts are involved in these cases. The undisputed facts are that a vehicle belonging to the HP State Civil Supplies Corporation met with an accident. The learned MACT in the awards passed by it held the insurance company liable to pay the awarded amount. The insurance company during the pendency of the main petition before the learned Tribunal had deposited some amount under no fault liability. The Insurance Company filed appeals against the award of the learned Tribunal. It had deposited some amount at the time of filing of appeal. The insurance company further deposited the balance amount along with interest when directed by this Court, in appeal.

this Court disposed of the appeals of the insurance company and held the insurance company not liable to pay the amount of compensation and directed that the insurance company would be entitled to recover the amount deposited by it from the HP State Civil Supplies Corporation. It was further ordered that it shall be entitled to recover the amount deposited along with interest by filing execution petition(s) before the learned MACT concerned.

Certain amounts were deposited by the HP State Civil Supply Corporation in the Registry of this Court. According to the insurance company the amount deposited was not the full amount and therefore it filed execution petitions to recover the balance amounts. Similar matters had come up for consideration before this Court being Civil Revisions No. 47, 48 and 49 of 2009 and this Court after discussing the entire law held that the Insurance Company is only entitled to interest on the principal awarded amount and is not entitled to interest on interest. Therefore, the Executing Court while making the calculations as to whether the amount deposited by the Civil Supplies Corporation is correct or not will only award interest on the principal awarded amount and will not award interest on the total amount deposited by the Insurance Company while filing its appeals.

Another issue has been raised before this Court that till which date the interest should be awarded. According to Ms. Bhavana Dutta interest can only be awarded till the date when the amount was deposited in Court, whereas according to Mr. P.S. Chandel, Learned Counsel for the respondent, the interest will have be awarded till payment since according to him no notice of the application of deposit was given by the Corporation to the Insurance Company. It is not disputed that the Insurance Company in these cases deposited the amount vide cheques dated 1st February, 2006. However, no notice of this application was given to the Insurance Company and it is not shown that even a copy of this application was supplied to the Learned Counsel for the Insurance Company. However, the plea of Shri P.S. Chandel that the Insurance Company is entitled to up to date interest cannot be accepted because the Insurance Company itself filed applications in the High Court which are supported with an affidavit affirmed on 7th December 2006 in which it has been stated that when it filed the execution petitions in various Courts and during the pendency of the execution proceedings the H.P State Civil Supplies Corporation informed the executing Court that the award amount alongwith interest has been deposited in the aforesaid appeals. The Insurance Company would not be entitled to any interest from the date it was informed about the deposit having been made in the Court because if there is delay in filing the application before the High Court then it cannot claim interest for its own delay. Therefore, it is clarified that the Insurance Company shall be entitled to payment of interest only till the date when the Corporation made a statement before the executing Court that the amount has been deposited in the High Court because that would be deemed to be a notice under Order 21 Rule 1 CPC. Therefore, the matters are remanded to the executing Court who shall now decide the question whether the amount deposited is proper or not in light of the aforesaid position. The revisions are disposed of accordingly. No costs.