1. Through the medium of these two petitions the petitioners seek transfer of their claim petitions pending with the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Srinagar to its counter part at Jammu, principally on the ground of the convenience of the parties, though the accident out of which the claim petitions arose allegedly occurred near Qazigund in Kashmir province. The respondents have submitted in writing that they have no objection to the transfer of the petitions from the tribunal at Srinagar to the tribunal at Jammu. Ordinarily, the agreement of the parties should have sufficed to transfer the claim petitions from Srinagar to Jammu but the question is not whether there are grounds to grant the petitioners prayer but one of its permissibility in law and that controversy in turn would require determination of whether the High Court has the power to transfer a claim petition, from one claims tribunal to another in the State.

2. The power to transfer civil cases is provided in Sec.24 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It provides:

"24(1) On the application of any of the parties and after notice to the parties and after hearing such of them as desire to be heard, or of its own motion without such notice, the High Court or the District Judge may at any stage

(a) transfer any suit, appeal or other proceedings pendings before it for trial or disposal to any court subordinate to it and competent to try or dispose of the same, or

(b) withdraw any suit, appeal or other proceeding pending in any court subordinate to it, and

i) Try or dispose of the same ; or

ii) Transfer the same for trial or disposal to any court subordinate to it and competent to try or dispose of the same, or

iii) Re-transfer the same for trial or disposal to the Court from which it was withdrawn.

xx

xx

xx

xx

xx

Section 24 C. P. C, empowers the High Court to withdraw a case pending in any subordinate Court and try it itself or transfer the same to another subordinate court for its trial. The section talks of "subordinate Court" and the expression "tribunal" is absent in the section. Whether a claims tribunal can be equated with "any court subordinate to the High Court" is the question, the answer to which would determine whether or not the High Court has the power to transfer a claims petition from one claims tribunal to another in the State?

3. There is divergence of opinion amongst the courts in the country as to whether a claims tribunal can be considered to be a court subordinate to the High Court, whereas some of the courts have held in the affirmative, the others have decided in the negative. But to apply Section 24 C.P.C. to the claims tribunal, it is not necessary to refer to the differing views of the High Courts on the point in view of the pronouncement of the Supreme Court in Bhagwati Devi and others Vs. M/s I. S. Goel and others reported as 1983 A.C.J. 123 where the Supreme Court referred to its earlier pronouncement in the State of Haryana Vs, Smt. Darshana Devi and others, AIR1979 S. C. 855, which arose out of decision of the Punjab and Harayana High Court. The question before the Punjab & Harayana High Court was whether a claimant before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal could claim the benefit of order XXXIII C. P. C. to the proceedings before the claims tribunal.

The tribunal had negatived the claim holding that Order XXXIII C. P. C. was not applicable to the proceedings before the tribunal. The High Court, however, overruled the tribunal against which the State of Haryana filed an appeal to the Supreme Court which approved the reasoning of the High Court holding that Order XXXIII C. P, C. also applied to the tribunals which have all the trappings of a Civil Court" and equated the Tribunal with a Civil Court, in Bhagwati Devis case (Supra) the matter arose in the context of the power of the Supreme Court under Section 25 C. P. C. to transfer suits and other proceedings, inter alia, from one "Civil Court" in one state to another "Civil Court" in any other. State. Their

Click Here to Read the rest of this document