The main legal point established in the judgment is that Section 170 of the Motor Vehicles Act provides the insurance company with the right to contest a claim under two distinct situations, and a reasoned order by the tribunal is necessary for the insurance company to have a wider defense on merits.

SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, J.

( 1 ) ADMIT.

( 2 ) AT the request of the learned counsel for the parties, the petition is taken up for final disposal.

( 3 ) A claim petition under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (herein-after referred to as the said Act) was filed by respondent no. 1 in which the owner of the vehicle (respondent no. 2) along with insurance company (petitioner herein) were impleaded as respondents. Written statement was filed by the owner and the insurance company.

( 4 ) THE driver had died at the time of the accident and thus could not be impleaded as a party. Both the respondents filed their written statement but the owner absented himself from the proceedings and was proceeded ex parte. The insurance company (petitioner herein) filed an application under Section 170 of the said Act which reads as under:"170. Impleading insurer in certain cases " Where in the course of any inquiry, the Claims Tribunal is satisfied that :-a. there may be collusion between the persons making the claim and the person against whom the claim is made; or b. the person against whom the claim is made has failed to contest the claim, it may, for reasons to be recorded in writing, direct that the insurer who may be liable in respect of such claim, shall be impleaded as a party to the proceeding and the insurer so impleaded shall thereupon have, without prejudice to the provisions contained in sub section (2) of Section 149, the right to contest the claim on all or any of the grounds that are available to the person against whom the claim has been made. "

( 5 ) THE petitioner claimed that since the owner had absented himself form the legal proceedings the evidence was being recorded in the absence of the said party, the petitioner was entitled to the benefit of Clause (b) of Section 170 of the said Act. This request was declined by the MACT. There are two reasons recorded for such rejection. The first reason is that the written statement was filed by the owner and thus it cannot be said that the owner failed to contest the proceedings. The second appears to be that both clause (a) and (b) of section 170 of the said Act have to exist at the same time. The impugned order does not say so but the reasoning appears to proceed on the basis that the word 'or' in the said provision should read as 'and'. The trial court has relied upon the judgments of the Division Bench of this court and of the Apex Court to arrive at such a conclusion.

( 6 ) ON hearing learned counsel for the parties, I am of the considered view that the impugned order of the MACT suffers from patent error in law and thus is required to be interfered with. A reading of the provisions of Section 170 of the said Act shows that both clause (a) and (b) of the said Act are two alternatives and in either of the alternatives the insurance company has been given such a right. The reason for the same is that the two are mutually exclusive. The right of the insurance company has been restricted within the purview of the said Act both in terms of the defences that an insurance company can raise and the grievance in appeal which an insurance company can raise. The exception to this is in case of a collusion between the claimant and the person against whom the claim is made or if the person against whom the claim is made fails to contest the claim. The object of clause (b) is that it should not be that the claimant gets the benefit of an undefended litigation without being called upon to prove certain crucial aspects.

( 7 ) IN my considered view the trial court has misread the observations of the division Bench in United India Insurance Co. Ltd v. Patricia Jean Mahajan and ors: I (2001) ACC 480 (DB ). The impugned order quotes selectively from the order to come to such a conclusion. A perusal of para 12 of the said judgment would shows that in the particular case the party against whom the claim was made not only filed the written statement but also recorded their statements. It is it in view th