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Judgment
S.C. Mohapatra, J.—This is an appeal by the insurer u/s 110-D of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (for short ''the Act'').
Before the Tribunal the owner of the vehicle appeared and contested. Accordingly, the permissible zone under which the insurer could contest would be as provided u/s 96(2) of the Act.
Mr. A.K. Mohanty, the learned Counsel appearing for the appellant placed all the materials to convince me that the award given by the Tribunal is not in accordance with the judicial norms and while determining the negligence or determining the just compensation the principles laid down have not been (?)
I am afraid, in the appeal of the insurer I cannot go into such question specially when the owner had contested before the Tribunal. In case the insurer would have filed an application before the Tribunal that there was collusion between the owner and the claimant and the same would have been rejected by the Tribunal, in appeal by the insurer I would have considered the allegation of the insurer and in case I would have been satisfied about the allegation of collusion. I would have permitted the insurer to argue the matter on merit also. Such is not the case here. Mr. Mohanty could not bring home the point* within the compass of Section 96(2) of the Act. Accordingly, I am not inclined to interfere with the decision of the Tribunal.
Mr. Mohanty submitted that the Tribunal acted contrary to law in directing payment of the fee on the claim petition by the insurer. Court-fee is payable as provided under the Orissa Motor Vehicles (Accidents Claims Tribunals) Rules, 1960. Rule 22 provides for the fee payable before the Tribunal. Sub-rule (2) thereof reads as follows:
(2) The Claims Tribunal may, in its discretion, exempt a party from the payment of fee prescribed under Sub-rule (1).
Provided that where the claim of a party is accepted, whether in full or in part, by the Claims Tribunal, the party shall be liable to pay the fees exempted under this sub-rule, at the time of receiving the award.
Thus, in view of rule 22(2) there is no scope for the Tribunal to fix the liability on the insurer for payment of the fee on the claim petition. The Tribunal is not correct to that extent. However, it is well settled that costs shall follow the event unless otherwise prohibited. While directing the claimant to pay the fee, the amount payable by the claimant as fee can be awarded as costs to him by the insurer, since the insurer contested the claim and failed to the extent of the award. In this case the court-fee payable on the claim application is not disputed to be Rs. 1500/-. However, the fee payable on the awarded amount would be Rs. 125/-. Therefore, I modify the order of the Tribunal to the following extent:
The claimants shall pay the fee on the claim application and the insurer shall pay consolidated costs to that extent, both for hearing as well as towards the fee payable.
Thus, to avoid the justified technical objection of Mr. A.K. Mohanty, I direct that a consolidated cost of Rs. 1500/- shall be paid by the insurer to the claimants.
In the result, the appeal has no merit which is accordingly dismissed. Since I have modified the costs awarded by the Tribunal, I award no costs in this appeal which I would have awarded against the appellant if I would not have modified the order.