The right to receive fair compensation for the widow and her minor children could not have been curtailed, especially when the appellant had specifically denied entering into a settlement agreement.

JUDGMENT

Rekha Palli, J. (Oral)

1. The present appeal under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, preferred by the wife of the deceased namely Sh. Balbir Singh, seeks to assail the award dated 02.05.2019 passed by the learned Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal. Vide the impugned award, the learned Tribunal has rejected the claim of the appellants primarily on the ground that the appellant no.1/wife of the deceased had already received a sum of Rs.5,00,000/- from the owner and driver of the offending vehicle by way of a Panchayati Settlement dated 22.10.2017 entered into between the parties. The learned Tribunal has further held that since MACT proceedings in respect of the same incident were already pending before the learned Tribunal at Faridabad, the proceedings before the learned Tribunal at Delhi were even otherwise, not maintainable.

2. Learned counsel for the appellants submits that the learned Tribunal has failed to appreciate that the appellant no.1, having lost her husband at a young age, was asked to sign certain blank papers by the owner and the driver of the offending vehicle and being under a belief that she was being paid a sum of Rs. 5,00,000/- towards the loan advanced by her deceased husband, she accepted the amount and signed the papers. The learned Tribunal, however, failed to appreciate this aspect and accepted the respondents' plea that she had already received compensation and therefore rejected her claim. He submits that merely because the appellant no.1 accepted this meagre amount of Rs. 5,00,000/- from the owner and driver of the vehicle, the right of the minor children to receive compensation could not be said to have been waived. He, therefore, prays that the appeal be allowed and the matter be remanded back to the learned Tribunal for adjudication on merits.

3. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondents support the impugned award by contending that once the appellant no.1 had entered into a compromise and received the sum of Rs. 5,00,000/-, she cannot now be permitted to raise any further claim for compensation. They, therefore, pray that the appeal be dismissed.

4. Having considered the submissions of learned counsel for the parties and perused the record, I find that insofar as the pendency of the claim petition before the learned Tribunal at Faridabad is concerned, this issue need not detain me as it is an admitted position that the claim petition, which was pending before the learned Tribunal at Faridabad stands already withdrawn. Moreover the same was not filed at the instance of the appellants, but was based on a Detailed Accident Report(DAR) filed by the investigating authority. The only other ground on which the claim petition has been rejected is that the appellant no.1 had already entered into a settlement with respondent nos. 1 & 2, i.e., the owner and driver of the offending vehicle.

5. The appellant has vehemently urged that this settlement was under a belief that she was being refunded the loan advanced by her husband and that she had not signed on any compromise agreement but had only signed blank papers. This stand, it is urged, was taken by the appellants even before the learned Tribunal but was not even considered by it while passing the impugned award. In order to appreciate this plea, it would be appropriate to refer to the cross-examination of the appellant no.1 before the learned Tribunal. The same reads as under:

"The compromise dated 22.10.2017 as allegedly done between the petitioner and the respondent Tej Pal Singh, the father of the respondent no.1 and 2 has been put to the petitioner by the Tribunal.

Q. It is put to you whether the signature at point A on the compromise paper dated 22.10.2017 hereby exhibited as Ex.C1 belong to you?

Ans. Yes. (Vol. I was asked to sign the paper below and I just signed it. When I signed the paper, the paper was blank. Some person who was there with the respondents asked me to sign the compromise paper)

(emphasis supplied).

Q. It i