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2010 DIGILAW 942 (RAJ)

ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Ltd. v. Radha Devi

2010-05-03

R.S.CHAUHAN

body2010
Hon'ble CHAUHAN, J.—The appellant has challenged the award dated 25.03.2010 passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal and Additional District & Sessions Judge, Fast Track No.3, Jaipur, District Jaipur (hereinafter referred to “the learned Tribunal”), whereby the learned Tribunal has awarded a compensation of Rs.3,97,000/- to the claimants-respondents for the death of the bread earner, Lalaram. 2. The learned counsel for the appellant has raised a single contention before this Court, namely, since the vehicle involved in the accident was a goods vehicle and since the vehicle owner did not have a legally valid permit, the policy conditions were violated by the insured. Therefore, the Insurance Company is not liable. According to the learned counsel, despite the fact that the notice had been issued to the owner of the offending vehicle, he did not produce the permit of the offending vehicle. Thus, according to the learned counsel, this clearly proves that the owner of the offending vehicle did not have a legally valid permit. According to him, this aspect has skipped the notice of the learned Tribunal. 3. Heard the learned counsel for the appellant and has perused the impugned award. 4. There is not an iota of evidence to show that after having sent a notice to the owner to produce the permit, the Insurance Company had made any application before the learned Tribunal praying that the learned tribunal should invoke its powers to summon the document. Since the learned Tribunal does have the power to summon the documents, the Insurance Company should have invoked the said power. Moreover, according to the learned Tribunal, there is no evidence that they had carried out any investigation with regard to the existence or non3 existence of the permit. Thus, the learned Tribunal is justified in concluding that the Insurance Company has not been able to establish the fact that the owner of the vehicle did not possess a legally valid permit. Hence, the learned Tribunal is legally justified in concluding that the insured has not violated any of the conditions of the policy. Thus, the learned Tribunal has validly imposed the burden of payment upon the Insurance Company. 5. This appeal is devoid of any merit; it is, hereby, dismissed.