Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
SMT.RITA DEVI & ORS.
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
NEW INDIA ASSURANCE CO.LTD. & ANR.
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 27/04/2000
BENCH:
N.S.Hegde, D.P.Wadhwa
JUDGMENT:
SANTOSH HEGDE, J.
One Dasarath Singh was a driver of an auto rickshaw
owned by Lalit Singh. The vehicle in question was
registered as a public carrier vehicle used for hire by the
passengers. This vehicle was insured with the
respondent-Insurance Company. On 22nd of March, 1995, it is
stated that some unknown passengers hired the above auto
rickshaw from rickshaw stand at Dimapur between 5 to 6 p.m.
It is also not in dispute that the said auto rickshaw was
reported stolen and the dead body of driver Dasarath Singh
was recovered by the police on the next day, the auto
rickshaw was never recovered and the claim of the owner for
the loss of auto rickshaw was accepted by the
respondent-Insurance Company and a sum of Rs.47,220/- was
settled by the said company towards the loss suffered by the
owner. One Darshan Singh claiming to be a Power of Attorney
holder of the present appellants filed a claim petition
along with the present appellants under Section 163 A of the
Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short the Act) claiming
damages for the death caused to the deceased Dasarath Singh
during the course of his employment under Lalit Singh as a
death caused in an accident arising out of the use of
vehicle. The Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Nagaland as
per its judgment dated 24th of June, 1996 came to the
conclusion that the death of the driver of the auto rickshaw
(Dasarath Singh) was caused by an accident coming within the
purview of the Motor Vehicles Act, therefore, held that the
owner of the vehicle was liable to compensate the death of
the driver in money value. Since there was an agreement
between the vehicle owner and the respondent-Insurance
Company to compensate the employer of the vehicle, said
legal and statutory liability stood fastened on the
respondent-Insurance Company. The tribunal also held that
the quantum of claim of the claimants stood established and
consequently it awarded a sum of Rs.2,81,500/- against the
Insurance Company with interest @ 12% on the amount awarded
from the date of application till payment. The Insurance
Company preferred an appeal by itself before the Gauhati
High Court (Kohima Bench) in M.A.(F) No.8(K)96. The High
Court by its judgment dated 9.3.1998 came to the conclusion
that there was no motor accident as contemplated under the
Act. The High Court further held that the case in hand was
a case of murder and not of an accident, hence a petition
for claim under the provisions of the Act did not arise.
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The High Court, accordingly, allowed the appeal and set
aside the judgment and the award made by the tribunal.
Originally, the above mentioned Power of Attorney holder had
preferred the above appeal making the wife and children of
the deceased as proforma respondents along with the other
respondent. By an order of this Court dated 18th of
February, 2000, this Court felt that to protect the interest
of the heirs of the deceased the wife and children of the
deceased should be first impleaded as appellants to this
appeal and the cause-title be amended, which having been
done and notice being issued, the respondent- Insurance
Company is represented before us. We have heard the
parties. Leave granted. On behalf of the appellants, Shri
Anurabh Chowdhury contends that the deceased was employed to
drive the auto rickshaw for ferrying passengers on hire and
on the fateful day the auto rickshaw was parked at the
rickshaw stand at Dimapur and at about 5 to 6 p.m. some
unknown passengers had engaged the said auto rickshaw for
their journey towards Singrijan area and thereafter nothing
was known of the driver or rickshaw. It is only on the next
day that the authorities were able to recover the body of
the deceased and the auto rickshaw in question was never
traced till date. The owner of the auto rickshaw has,
therefore, been compensated by the Insurance Company for the
loss of the said auto rickshaw, therefore, the murder of the
deceased Dasarath Singh squarely comes within the word
death due to accident arising out of the use of motor
vehicle found in Section 163A(1) of the Act. Consequently
the tribunal was justified in awarding the compensation
claimed by the appellants. He contended the word accident
has not been defined under the Motor Vehicles Act and the
said Act being a beneficial legislation, a liberal
interpretation should be given so as to achieve the objects
of the Act. He contended that the deceased being an
employee was entitled for compensation both under the Motor
Vehicles Act and also under the Workmens Compensation Act,
1923. However, under Section 167 of the Motor Vehicles Act,
the heirs of the deceased had a choice either to claim
compensation under that Act or under the Workmens
Compensation Act. The appellants having chosen to invoke
the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, the Tribunal was
wholly justified in awarding the compensation, while the
High Court, according to him, without properly appreciating
the reasonings adopted by the tribunal has interfered with
the just order of the tribunal. He also contends that the
appeal filed by the Insurance Company was not maintainable
for not having obtained the leave of the tribunal as
required under Section 170 of the Act. He relies on a
judgment of this Court in the case of Shankarayya & Anr.
vs. United India Insurance Co. Ltd. & Anr. (1998 (3) SCC
140). Ms.Pankaj BalaVerma, appearing for the respondent-
Insurance Company does not in fact dispute the
maintainability of the petition filed by the appellants
under Section 163A of the Motor Vehicles Act but contends
that the meaning ascribed to the word accident in the
Workmens Compensation Act by judicial pronouncements cannot
be applied to the word accident in the Motor Vehicles Act
because the object of the two Acts are different. She
supported the judgment of the High Court by contending that
on the facts of the present appeal, the death of the driver
of the auto rickshaw was caused by felonious acts of certain
unknown persons and the same is not caused by an accident
arising out of the use of the vehicle. Regarding the
maintainability of the appeal, she submits the judgment of
this Court was reported subsequent to the High Court
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Judgment, hence no fault could be found with the impugned
judgment on that score and no such objection was taken in
regard to the maintainability before the High Court. As
pointed out by the learned counsel for the appellants, the
Motor Vehicles Act does not define the word accident.
However, Section 163A of the Motor Vehicles Act provides for
payment of compensation for the death or injury suffered in
a motor vehicle accident on a structured formula basis in
Section 163 A of the Act. Sub-clause (I) of the said
Section says that notwithstanding anything contained in this
Act or in any other law for the time being in force or
instrument having the force of law, the owner of the motor
vehicle or the authorised insurer shall be liable to pay in
the case of death or permanent disablement due to accident
arising out of the use of motor vehicle, compensation, as
indicated in the Second Schedule, to the legal heirs or the
victim, as the case may be; Sub-section (2) of the said
Section also provides, in any claim for compensation under
that sub-section, the claimant shall not be required to
plead or establish that the death or permanent disablement
in respect of which the claim has been made was due to any
wrongful act or neglect or default of the owner of the
vehicle or vehicles concerned or of any other person
(emphasis supplied). A conjoint reading of the above two
sub-clauses of Section 163A shows that a victim or his heirs
are entitled to claim from the owner/Insurance Company a
compensation for death or permanent disablement suffered due
to accident arising out of the use of the motor vehicle
(emphasis supplied), without having to prove wrongful act or
neglect or default of any one. Thus it is clear, if it is
established by the claimants that the death or disablement
was caused due to an accident arising out of the use of
motor vehicle then they will be entitled for payment of
compensation. In the present case, the contention of the
Insurance Company which was accepted by the High Court is
that the death of the deceased (Dasarath Singh) was not
caused by an accident arising out of the use of motor
vehicle. Therefore, we will have to examine the actual
legal import of the words death due to accident arising out
of the use of motor vehicle. The question, therefore, is
can a murder be an accident in any given case ? There is no
doubt that murder, as it is understood, in the common
parlance is a felonious act where death is caused with
intent and the perpetrators of that act normally have a
motive against the victim for such killing. But there are
also instances where murder can be by accident on a given
set of facts . The difference between a murder which is
not an accident and a murder which is an accident, depends
on the proximity of the cause of such murder. In our
opinion, if the dominent intention of the Act of felony is
to kill any particular person then such killing is not an
accidental murder but is a murder simplicitor, while if the
cause of murder or act of murder was originally not intended
and the same was caused in furtherance of any other
felonious act then such murder is an accidental murder.
In Challis vs. London and South Western Railway
Company (1905 2 Kings Bench 154), the Court of Appeal held
where an engine driver while driving a train under a bridge
was killed by a stone willfully dropped on the train by a
boy from the bridge, that his injuries were caused by an
accident. In the said case, the Court rejecting an argument
that the said incident cannot be treated as an accident
held:
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The accident which befell the deceased was, as it
appears to me, one which was incidental to his employment as
an engine driver; in other words it arose out of his
employment. The argument for the respondents really
involves the reading into the Act of a proviso to the effect
that an accident shall not be deemed to be within the Act,
if it arose from the mischievous act of a person not in the
service of the employer. I see no reason to suppose that
the Legislature intended so to limit the operation of the
Act. The result is the same to the engine driver, from
whatever cause the accident happened; and it does not
appear to me to be any answer to the claim for
indemnification under the Act to say that the accident was
caused by some person who acted mischievously.
In the case of Nisbet vs. Rayne & Burn (1910) 1 KB
689, where a cashier, while travelling in a railway to a
colliery with a large sum of money for the payment of his
employers workmen, was robbed and murdered. The Court of
Appeal held: That the murder was an accident from the
standpoint of the person who suffered from it and that it
arose out of an employment which involved more than the
ordinary risk, and consequently that the widow was entitled
to compensation under the Workmens Compensation Act 1906.
In this case the Court followed its earlier judgment in the
case of Challis (supra). In the case of Nisbet, the Court
also observed that it is contended by the employer that
this was not an accident within the meaning of the Act,
because it was an intentional felonious act which caused the
death, and that the word accident negatives the idea of
intention. In my opinion, this contention ought not to
prevail. I think it was an accident from the point of view
of Nisbet, and that it makes no difference whether the
pistol shot was deliberately fired at Nisbet or whether it
was intended for somebody else and not for Nisbet.
The judgment of the Court of Appeal in Nisbets case
was followed by the majority judgment by the House of Lords
in the case of Board of Management of Trim Joint District
School vs. Kelly (1914 AC 667). Applying the principles
laid down in the above cases to the facts of the case in
hand, we find that the deceased, a driver of the auto
rickshaw, was duty bound to have accepted the demand of fare
paying passengers to transport them to the place of their
destination. During the course of this duty, if the
passengers had decided to commit an act of felony of
stealing the auto rickshaw and in the course of achieving
the said object of stealing the auto rickshaw, they had to
eliminate the driver of the auto rickshaw then it cannot but
be said that the death so caused to the driver of the auto
rickshaw was an accidental murder. The stealing of the auto
rickshaw was the object of the felony and the murder that
was caused in the said process of stealing the auto rickshaw
is only incidental to the act of stealing of the auto
rickshaw. Therefore, it has to be said that on the facts
and circumstances of this case the death of the deceased
(Dasarath Singh) was caused accidentally in the process of
committing the theft of the auto rickshaw. Learned counsel
for the respondents contended before us that since the Motor
Vehicles Act has not defined the word death and the legal
interpretations relied upon by us are with reference to
definition of the word death in Workmens Compensation Act
the same will not be applicable while interpreting the word
death in Motor Vehicles Act because according to her, the
objects of the two Acts are entirely different. She also
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contends on the facts of this case no proximity could be
presumed between the murder of the driver and the stealing
of the auto rickshaw. We are unable to accept this
contention advanced on behalf of the respondents. We do not
see how the object of the two Acts, namely, the Motor
Vehicles Act and the Workmens Compensation Act are in any
way different. In our opinion, the relevant object of both
the Acts are to provide compensation to the victims of
accidents. The only difference between the two enactments
is that so far as the Workmens Compensation Act is
concerned, it is confined to workmen as defined under that
Act while the relief provided under Chapter X to XII of the
Motor Vehicles Act is available to all the victims of
accidents involving a motor vehicle. In this conclusion of
ours we are supported by Section 167 of the Motor Vehicles
Act as per which provision, it is open to the claimants
either to proceed to claim compensation under the Workmens
Compensation Act or under the Motor Vehicles Act. A perusal
of the objects of the two enactments clearly establishes
that both the enactments are beneficial enactments operating
in the same field, hence judicially accepted interpretation
of the word death in Workmens Compensation Act is, in our
opinion, applicable to the interpretation of the word death
in the Motor Vehicles Act also.
In the case of Shivaji Dayanu Patil & Anr. vs.
Vatschala Uttam More (1991 (3) SCC 530) this Court while
pronouncing on the interpretation of Section 92 A of the
Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 held as follows : Section 92-A
was in the nature of a beneficial legislation enacted with a
view to confer the benefit of expeditious payment of a
limited amount by way of compensation to the victims of an
accident arising out of the use of a motor vehicle on the
basis of no fault liability. In the matter of
interpretation of a beneficial legislation the approach of
the courts is to adopt a construction which advances the
beneficent purpose underlying the enactment in preference to
a construction which tends to defeat that purpose.
In that case in regard to the contention of proximity
between the accident and the explosion that took place this
Court held : This would show that as compared to the
expression caused by, the expression arising out of has
a wider connotation. The expression caused by was used in
Sections 95(1)(b)(i) and (ii) and 96(2)(b)(ii) of the Act.
In Section 92-A, Parliament, however, chose to use the
expression arising out of which indicates that for the
purpose of awarding compensation under Section 92-A, the
casual relationship between the use of the motor vehicle and
the accident resulting in death or permanent disablement is
not required to be direct and proximate and it can be less
immediate. This would imply that accident should be
connected with the use of the motor vehicle but the said
connection need not be direct and immediate. This
construction of the expression arising out of the use of a
motor vehicle in Section 92-A enlarges the field of
protection made available to the victims of an accident and
is in consonance with the beneficial object underlying the
enactment.
In the instant case, as we have noticed the facts, we
have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the
murder of the deceased (Dasarath Singh) was due to an
accident arising out of the use of motor vehicle.
Therefore, the trial court rightly came to the conclusion
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that the claimants were entitled for compensation as claimed
by them and the High Court was wrong in coming to the
conclusion that the death of Dasarath Singh was not caused
by an accident involving the use of motor vehicle. This
leaves us to consider the second point raised before us by
the counsel for the appellant. It is argued on behalf of
the appellants that the appeal preferred by the Insurance
Company purported to be under Section 173 of the Motor
Vehicles Act was not maintainable because prior permission
of the Court as required was not obtained by the appellants.
In support of this contention of the appellants, reliance is
placed on a judgments of this Court in the case of
Shankarayya & Anr. vs.United India Insurance (Co.Ltd. &
Anr. 1998 3 SCC 140). In the said judgment a Division
Bench of this Court held : The Insurance Company when
impleaded as a party by the Court can be permitted to
contest the proceedings on merits only if the conditions
precedent mentioned in Section 170 are found to be satisfied
and for that purpose the Insurance Company has to obtain an
order in writing from the Tribunal and which should be a
reasoned order by the Tribunal. Unless that procedure is
followed, the Insurance Company cannot have a wider defence
on merits than what is available to it by way of statutory
defence. It is true that the claimants themselves had
joined Respondent 1 Insurance Company in the claim petition
but that was done with a view to thrust the statutory
liability on the Insurance Company on account of the
contract of the insurance. That was not an order of the
Court itself permitting the Insurance Company which was
impleaded to avail of a larger defence on merits on being
satisfied on the aforesaid two conditions mentioned in
Section 170. Consequently, it must be held that on the
facts of the present case, Respondent 1 Insurance Company
was not entitled to file an appeal on merits of the claim
which was awarded by the Tribunal.
We respectfully agree with the ratio laid down in the
above case and in view of the fact admittedly the Insurance
Company had not obtained leave from the tribunal before
filing the above appeal. We are of the opinion that the
appeal filed by the Insurance Company before the High Court
was not maintainable in law. For the reasons mentioned
above, this appeal succeeds, the judgment and order of the
High Court dated 9.3.1998 is set aside and that of the
Tribunal dated 24.6.1996 is restored. The appellants are
entitled to costs in all the counts.