The central legal point established in the judgment is the requirement for reliable and concrete evidence to establish liability in motor accident cases, emphasizing the duty of the Accidents Tribunals to ensure justice and the importance of truthful testimony.

K.Kannan, J.

1. The Insurance Company is in appeal challenging liability on the ground that the death alleged to have resulted by the involvement of the insureds vehicle was a fabricated version and the vehicle was not involved at all in the accident. It was a case wrought out on collision with the owner-driver and therefore the Insurance Company could not have been made liable.

2. The accident is said to have taken place while the insureds vehicle a Tata sumo car ran over the deceased who was a pedestrian and the accident is said to have taken place opposite the main road at Rajpura. The only eyewitness was one Sitar Mohd., who had a tea shop opposite the police post focal point, Rajpura.

3. The Tribunal accepted the evidence of the witness produced by the claimant to find that the insurers vehicle had been involved in the accident. It was a case where no FIR had been lodged and there was no other evidence to anchor than the statement of Sitar Mohd. to affirm whether the accident had taken place and whether the insureds vehicle had been involved in the accident. Finding there was the evidence of PW1, the Court went on to notice that a FIR, which had been lodged, referred to the fact that there was an incident of accident on that particular day and the deceased had died only due to a motor accident. The Tribunal therefore took that the death due to the motor accident must be relatable only to the insureds vehicle.

4. The Insurance Company is in appeal to point out that the death arose out of a motor accident is only addressing one portion of the entire version and what was more important was to bring in evidence to implicate the insureds vehicle in order to sustain a claim against the insurer. Referring to the evidence of the only witness Sitar Mohd. at the time when he gave evidence before the Tribunal that he had seen the particular Tata sumo car as responsible for the accident, he was confronted with the question whether he had given evidence also in the criminal court for proceedings initiated against the driver by the police. He had admitted the same. He had then been asked whether he did not give a statement before the criminal court that he had not seen any accident nor had he known that any Tata sumo vehicle was involved in the accident or not. He has admitted first, but later denied in the cross examination. The statement in the criminal court has, therefore, been marked to bring out the contradiction in evidence. The contradicted portion of the evidence before the criminal court reads thus, "I do not know whether any Tata sumo was involved in the accident or not. My signatures was obtained by the police when I pick up a person who met with an accident" Elsewhere in the same statement which contradicts the version given before the Tribunal was "I cannot tell the date of the accident but nine months ago, I do not know what had happened........Accident taken place in Focal Point, Rajpura but I do not tell the exact place where the accident took place (sic). I cannot tell what vehicle was involved in the accident." If there had been a statement before a criminal court where he had stated that he did not know how the accident had taken place, perhaps it cannot conclude everything.

5. It should still have been possible for the Tribunal to take a decision uninfluenced by any decision that may have come before the criminal court. The several decisions which have come about on this issue are to the effect that a judgment in a criminal court is not binding on the Tribunal; the non-filing of a FIR is not material; even the fact of involvement of the vehicle as found by the criminal court is not binding. While the Tribunal is competent to assess the evidence which is brought before it and take an independent decision, then the point that has to be seen is whether there was any evidence worth its name before the Tribunal to come a finding that the particular vehicle was involved in the accident. It can be either that the