The liability of an insurer under a motor vehicle insurance policy is absolute, subject to the limit specified in the policy, and the claimant is not required to prove negligence on the part of the driver to succeed in a claim for compensation.

Bahadur, J.

1. This appeal is directed against the award and judgment of the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (District and Sessions Judge), Hazaribagh, passed in Miscellaneous case No. 361 of 1964 by which a sum of Rs. 20,000/- has been assessed and allowed as the amount of compensation payable to the claimant by the New India Assurance Company Limited. This company is the appellant before us with whom respondent No. 2, the Bihar Industries Private Limited, Ramgarh Cantt., Hazaribagh, had insured his motor vehicle, namely a motor truck which bore registration number W.G.E. 1719, against third party risks.

2. The case of the claimant Sumitra Devi, a girl aged about six years, resident of Ramgarh in the district of Hazaribagh, which appears, from her application to the Tribunal dated 27/28-8-1964, and the evidence of her father who has been examined as A. W. 2 is that while she was coming from her school in the afternoon of 12.3.1963, she was knocked down by a motor truck (WGE 1719) in front of the State Bank in the town of Ramgarh. As a result of the grievous injury she had suffered on her right leg, it had to be amputated from near her thigh above the knee region and that large sums of money had been spent on her treatment and a claim of Rs. 50,000/- was made.

3. The two opposite parties in the suit (appellant and respondent No. 2 here) filed their written statements separately, though respondent No. 2, the owner of the truck, did not contest the suit. The appellant alone contested and took various pleas, such as, the application was not maintainable, was barred by limitation, and in any case, the liability of the company was limited to Rs. 20,000/- in all.

4. On a consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case, the Tribunal came to the conclusion that it was a proper case in which the delay in filing the application for the claim ought to be condoned and that it was a proper forum in which the application could have been made. It held that the claimant was involved in the accident, on the day, place, time and by the truck, as alleged by her. It further held that the truck belonged to respondent No. 2, that the claimant was permanently deformed and that she was thus entitled to receive a compensation of Rs. 20,000/-, as already stated.

5. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant has, in the first place, urged that the Claims Tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain this application as the accident in question had taken place sixty days before the constitution of the Tribunal, which is said to have come into existence on 19-7-1963. It appears from the record that before the constitution of this Tribunal there was a Motor Vehicles Tribunal for the entire region of the Chotanagpur division and on the constitution of the present Tribunal, namely, on 17.7.1963, different Claims Tribunals were constituted for each district and the present one was for the district of appellant. That the accident having taken place on 12.3.1963 and the application before this Tribunal having been filed on 28-8-1964. was clearly not maintainable because the present Tribunal came into existence much after the date of the accident. It is said that the proper Tribunal at the relevant time was the Tribunal for the whole of Chotanagpur division and according to the provisions of section 110-F if there were no other Tribunals the proper forum for making a claim was the Civil Court. Learned counsel has frankly conceded that the question of going to the Civil Court does not arise on the facts of this case. His contention is that in the application for condonation of delay itself, it has been stated that earlier an application had been made before the Deputy Commissioner of Hazaribagh and later after it was realised that that was not the proper forum, it was filed much later before the present Tribunal. Identical contention was raised before the Tribunal and the matter has been considered by it in great detail and reliance was pla