JUDGMENT :

GITA GOPI, J.

1. Admit. Learned advocate Mr. Maulik Shelat waives service for the respondent No. 3- insurance company. Though served, none appears for the respondent No. 2 and the notice to the respondent No. 1 has remained un-served. Nonetheless, the respondent Nos. 1 an 2 had not appeared before the learned Tribunal also.

2. Considering the controversy involved in the matter, with the consent of the learned advocates for the parties present, the appeal is taken up for final hearing today.

3. This is an appeal under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 arising out of the judgment and award dated 29.11.2011 rendered by the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (Auxiliary), Banaskantha at Deesa (the Tribunal) in Motor Accident Claim Petition No. 3 of 2013 (claim petition), whereby, the Tribunal was pleased to dismiss the said claim petition.

4. The present appeal is filed by the appellant-original injured claimant inter alia contending that the Tribunal has erred in dismissing the claim petition merely on the ground of technical error which had cropped up in the claim petition as well as in the deposition of the appellant-claimant, Exh.21 qua the registration number of the offending vehicle, which was wrongly mentioned as ‘GJ-8-M-7583’ instead of ‘GJ-8-N-7583’ while the Tribunal has not considered the fact that the accident had occurred by motorcycle bearing registration No. ‘GJ-8-N-7583’ as is evident from the FIR, Exh.22, Panchnama, Exh.23 and the RC Book, Exh.39.

4.1 Another ground which has been raised is that, there was a typographical error in the name of the appellant, as was mentioned as ‘Niranjan Kumar Girishbhai Patel’ instead of ‘Niraj Girishkumar Patel’ which could be verified from the Voter ID Card of the appellant, produced vide Exh.38 and that, the respondent-insurance company had not raised any specific defence in the Written Statement regarding non-involvement of the vehicle in question and that the Tribunal ought not to have dismissed the claim petition on the ground of minor discrepancy.

5. Learned advocate Mr. Vishal C. Mehta for the appellant-injured claimant has submitted that when the claim petition was filed, the appellant-claimant was a minor, aged about 15 years and the claim petition was filed by his father. There was an error in the middle series of the vehicle number where, instead of ‘N’ in the claim petition as well as in the deposition of the appellant-claimant, it was typed as ‘M’ while, in the FIR and in the Panchnama, the middle series is mentioned as ‘N’. The learned advocate for the appellant submits that the owner of the vehicle being GJ-8-N-7583 was joined as opponent No. 2 and the driver, involved in the accident, was joined as opponent No. 1 in the claim petition and none of them had denied the involvement of the vehicle as the claim petition was proceeded ex-parte.

6. Countering the arguments, learned advocate Mr. Maulik J. Shelat for the respondent - insurance company submitted that the father of the appellant-claimant had no personal knowledge about the vehicle involved in the accident and as per his FIR, he had received the information of the vehicle from the crowd, which fact itself is stated in the FIR. He further stated that the father, as a guardian, was required to be vigilant in giving instructions for drafting the claim petition and further, the claimant, after attaining majority, has given his deposition, who himself could have prayed for amendment in the plaint and could have given deposition accordingly. He submitted that, now, the insurance company would have to suffer because of the negligence on the part of the claimant.

7. Having heard the learned advocates for the respective parties and perusing the impugned judgment and award, it appears that the Tribunal has rejected the claim petition observing that the claimant apparently failed to prove the facts and issues. Further, it is observed that the issue of injury also became suspicious and doubtful as the claim