- (1.) Present appeal has been preferred by M/s. New India Assurance Company Ltd. against the judgment and award dated 17.3.2005, passed by learned 1st Addl. District Judge-cum-Motor Vehicle Accident Claim Tribunal, Jamshedpur in connection with Compensation Case No. 21 of 2000 whereby and whereunder the claim application filed by respondent No. 1 has been allowed and the appellant has been directed to pay the awarded amount with interest, as indicated in the impugned judgment. Respondents have not appeared even after substituted service of notice and therefore, the appeal has been taken up as ex parte against them.
(2.) The appellant has raised only one issue that the driver of the offending vehicle was not having valid licence on the date of occurrence and the owner of the offending vehicle had allowed a person, who was not having valid licence, to ply the vehicle on road. Since R-2, the owner of the vehicle, had violated the terms of the policy, he should have been held liable to pay the compensation to the claimants and the appellant should not have been fastened with the liability. In this context, learned counsel has drawn my attention towards the evidence of O.P.W. 1 Somen Kumar Bagchi who has proved the report of the investigator which indicates that the driver R-3 was not having valid licence and said O.P.W. 1 has proved documents Exhibit-B series which include the report issued by the office of the D.T.O., Kanpur. As per the report of the D.T.O., Kanpur the licence which was brought on record was forged and fake and it was not issued from the office of the D.T.O., Kanpur.
(3.) The learned counsel has also drawn my attention towards paragraph-9 in which issue No. 3 has been discussed. It is contended that learned Tribunal has committed gross error by not relying on the documents Exhibit-B series which were sufficient to prove that the driver of the offending vehicle was not having valid licence. The Tribunal has wrongly held that investigators appointed by the appellant were not authorised by the Court to verify those documents or records of the office of the D.T.O. and therefore those documents cannot be relied upon. The observations that documents Exhibit-B series are not reliable and no reliance can be placed is not tenable and therefore, the findings of the learned Tribunal in this regard are illegal and liable to be set aside. The liability to pay awarded amount should have been directed to be paid by the owner of the vehicle i.e. R-2.;