Award of repair charges as well as compensation for damage of property and revenue loss confirmed.

(Civil Miscellaneous Appeals filed under Article 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, against the judgment and decree dated 30.04.1997 passed in MCOP No.529 of 1998 on the file of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, (District Judge), Villupuram.)

Common Judgment:

As the present two Civil Miscellaneous Appeals arise out of one single judgment of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, (District Judge), Villupuram, (in short "the Tribunal"), they are decided by this common judgment.

2. Two Insurance Companies, viz., United India Insurance Company Ltd., Cuddalore and National Insurance Company Limited, Pondicherry, challenging the judgment of the Tribunal on the aspect of quantum of compensation, have preferred these appeals.

3. The first respondent in both the appeals, by name Saradha, who was the claimant before the Tribunal, filed a Claim Petition before the Tribunal under Section 110(A) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, claiming compensation of Rs.54,829.26, the break-up being Rs.35,000/- for loss of revenue and Rs.19,829.26 towards the balance of repair charges. It was her case that on 25.04.1988 at 4:00 a.m., while her bus bearing Registration No.TSD 4647 was proceeding near Vikravandi, the bus bearing Registration No.TNT 3610 which was coming in the opposite direction, in a rash and negligent manner, dashed against her bus causing severe damage to it and hence, the owner of the bus and the insurers of the buses are liable to pay her the compensation. In reply, the Insurers of the buses, by filing their counter, disputed the huge claim made by the claimant.

4. On appreciation of the evidence before it, the Tribunal made the two Insurance Companies equally liable to pay sums of Rs.6,000/- towards revenue loss and Rs.19,000/- towards repair charges. As against this judgment, the Insurers of the two buses in question, have appealed before this Court.

5. Mr. K.S. Narasimhan, learned counsel for the appellant Insurance Company in CMA No.747 of 1998 and Mr. N. Vijayaraghavan, learned counsel for the appellant Insurance Company in CMA No.1173 of 1998 would uniformly contend that firstly, the claimant is estopped from making any further claim further to receipt of a sum of Rs.21,650/- in full quit and secondly, the Tribunal does not have the jurisdiction to entertain the claim under the head of revenue loss under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

6. I have carefully considered the rival contentions of the counsel on either side.

7. The two points for consideration before this Court are (i) whether the Tribunal is justified in awarding Rs.19,000/- towards repair charges when the fact remains that a sum of Rs.21,650/- has already been claimed by the claimant from the insurer of her bus and (ii) whether the Tribunal has got the jurisdiction to award compensation towards revenue loss.

8. It is not in dispute that the claimant has received a sum of Rs.21,650/- in respect of damage to her bus. It is also not in dispute that as against the claim for fifteen items, compensation has been awarded by the insurer of the bus in question, only in respect of seven items and the balance of eight items have not at all been surveyed. Also, the person who has surveyed the items has not been examined by the insurer. Before the Tribunal, it was the case of the Insurance Company that the surveyor had not surveyed eight out of fifteen items and it has paid damages in respect of those items for which the Surveyor had given them the report.

9. To answer point no.(i) as narrated above, i.e. whether the Tribunal is justified in awarding Rs.19,000/- towards damage to the bus in question, it would be useful to refer to a Division Bench judgment of this Court reported in 2005-3-L.W. 163 in the case of Mrs. Kannammal vs. N.N. Shanmugam, G.D. Gopal, The Branch Manager, National Insurance Co. Ltd. and United India Insurance Co. Ltd., in which relevant portions of para 10 and 13 read as under:

". . .The consequence of the failure to examine the person who carried out the a