The Claims Tribunal under the Motor Vehicles Act is not a 'Court' but a 'persona designata' and therefore not amenable to the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court. An appeal against the award of the Tribunal lies to the High Court, but the restrictions of Section 96(2) of the Act apply to the appeal.

JUDGMENT :

R.N. Misra, J.—The insurer carried an appeal u/s 110D of the Motor Vehicles Act of 1939 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act') to this Court against the award of compensation passed by the 2nd Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal and the said appeal was registered as Miscellaneous Appeal No. 128 of 1974. Before the Tribunal, the owner of the vehicle as also the insurer had contested the claim and after hearing parties, the Tribunal allowed compensation of Rs. 21,324/-. During the pendency of the appeal, a full Bench of this Court in the case National Insurance Co. Vs. Magikhaia Das (After him) Mst. Laxmi Dibya and Others, held that an insurer was not entitled to resist a claim on grounds not enumerated in Section 96(2) of the Act. The Appellant thereupon made an application for converting the Miscellaneous Appeal into a Civil Revision and on 15.6.1976, a learned Single Judge allowed the conversion. The appeal therefore, came to be registered as Civil Revision No. 162 of 1976. The insurer also made an application on 12.7.1976 for a writ of certiorari for quashing the same award and that application has been registered as O. J. C. No. 762 of 1976 and is pending disposal.

2. The maintainability of the revision application has been challenged on two grounds:

(i) The Claims Tribunal under the Act is not a 'Court' and, therefore, Section 115 of the CPC has no application ; and

(ii) As the award is subject to appeal merely because the award is not open to challenge at the instance of the insurer except on specified grounds, it cannot be said that it is a case in which no appeal lies to the High Court. Therefore, the revision is also not maintainable.

3. Section 115 of the CPC (hereinafter referred to as the 'Code') provides:

The High Court may call for the record of any case which has been decided by any Court subordinate to such High Court and in which no appeal lies thereto, and if such subordinate Court appears:

(a) to have exercised a jurisdiction not vested in it by law, or

(b) to have failed to exercise a jurisdiction so vested, or

(c) to have acted in the exercise of its jurisdiction illegally or with material irregularity ;

the High Court may make such order in the case as it thinks fit.

If the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal is not a 'Court' the award made by it is certainly not open to interference in exercise of this Court's revisional jurisdiction. Section 110 of the Act empowers the State Government by notification in the official Gazette to constitute one or more Motor Accidents Claims Tribunals. Sub-section (2) provides that such Tribunal shall consist of such number of members as the State Government may think fit to appoint. Sub-section (3) prescribes the qualification for appointment as member of such Tribunal. It has now to be found out whether the Tribunal appointed u/s 110 of the Act is a 'persona designata' or a 'court'.

4. Hidayatullah, C. J. (as the learned Chief Justice then was) speaking for a Full Bench in the case of Ram Milan and Another Vs. Bansilal Tej Singh and Another, , stated that persona designata means:

A person pointed out or described as an individual, as opposed to a person ascertained as a member of a class, or as filling a particular character.

In the case of Shah Jagmohandas Purshottamdas and Another Vs. Jamnadas Vrajlal Gandhi and Others, , Bhagwati J. (as the learned Judge then was), was examining whether use of the term 'District Judge' in a scheme framed u/s 92 of the Code meant a 'persona designata' or a 'court' for the purposes of maintainability of a revision application u/s 115 of the Code against an order made by the District Judge and noted that in the scheme as originally framed by the District Court, functions had been assigned to the District Judge. In appeal, however, the High Court substituted the word 'District Judge by 'District Court' The learned Judge observed:

...When the High Court departed from language used by the District Court in the Scheme as originally farmed and changed th