The driver of a motor vehicle is required to take proper precautions for the safety of road users, and failure to do so may result in liability for any accident caused by such negligence.

1. A military vehicle, a missile carrier, while on movement broke down and was parked on the road when a car came from behind and dashed into it. Captain H. S. Sekhon the driver of the car and his wife Mrs. Pushpinder Kaur Sekhon, who was sitting besides him were both injured; while their only son Ibadet, a year and half old, who was with his mother died as a result of the injuries sustained. This happened on March 5, 1972 at about 5.30 A.M. a little beyond Nilokheri on the Grand Trunk Road between Ambala and Karnal.

2. There were four separate claims for compensation put in, in respect of this accident, one being by the parents for the death of their child, the other two by Captain H. S. Sekhon and his wife Mrs. Pushpinder Kaur for the injuries suffered by them and the fourth was for the damage to the car involved in the accident.

3. All the claims filed were negatived by the Tribunal, holding that the accident had been caused by the negligence of the car driver, Captain H. S. Sekhon with the further specific finding that there was no negligence involved in the military vehicle being parked on the road. The Tribunal also upheld the claim of the Union of India for immunity from liability on the plea that the accident had occurred in the exercise of the sovereign functions of the State.

4. It is the common case of the parties (hat the military vehicle was parked on the metalled road covering almost half of it. This half being the left side of the road for traffic proceeding towards Delhi, as the claimants here were, and further that the accident occurred when the car came and hit into this parked vehicle from behind.

5. This being the situation violation of the mandate contained in S.81 of the Motor Vehicles Act is writ large. This provision reads as under:-

"81. Leaving vehicle in dangerous position. No person in charge of a motor vehicle shall cause or allow the vehicle or any trailer to remain at rest on any road in such a position or in such a condition or in such circumstances as to cause or be likely to cause danger, obstruction or undue inconvenience to other users of the road."

6. There can be no manner of doubt that the military vehicle covering almost half the metalled portion of the road, was certainly an obstruction and inconvenience to road users. It also being a hazard or danger on the road, raises the question whether proper safeguards were taken to indicate its presence there to the traffic on the road? It was the case of the claimants that this military vehicle had been left parked on the road without any parking lights or other indication of its being there. The respondents had sought to controvert this by pleading that the parking lights were on and this vehicle had also had four reflectors.

7. The claimants Captain H. S. Sekhon and his wife Mrs. Pushpinder Kaur were categoric in their testimony that there were no parking lights nor was there any other indication of this military vehicle when the accident occurred. Similar was the testimony of their orderly A. W. 1 Som Parkash, who was also travelling in the ill-fated car at the time of the accident. Support to the claimants, on this point is afforded by AW.3 Corporal Krishna Murti, who was on duty with the military convoy, a day earlier when this military vehicle had broken down. According to him, it had no parking lights, but he said there were two reflectors. A similar statement was made by R.W. 1 Wing Commandar A. Goswami, the Officer Incharge who deposed that no lighting device had, to his knowledge, been put at the back of the military vehicle. Next to consider is the testimony of the photographer AW.5 Wazir Chand Sharma who took the photographs of the place of accident. According to him too there were no tail lights or reflectors behind this military vehicle. Indeed no such light or reflector is visible in any of the photographs on record.

8. The witness who deposed to parking lights and reflectors was R.W. 3 Flying Officer Anand Parkash Bhatia