A road roller is a 'motor vehicle' as defined in the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, and an application under Section 110-A of the Act is competent arising from an accident with a road roller.

JUDGMENT :

S.S. SODHI, J.

1. This judgment will dispose of the appeal referred to above as also the Cross Appeal F.A. No. 207/1976, State of Haryana vs. Smt. Nirmal Bhutani and Others.

2. Sometime during the night intervening September 26 and 27, 1972, a First Car No. DHA 5651 ran into a road roller which was parked on the Fatehabad-Hissar road resulting in the death of both the occupants of the said car. One of the persons killed in this accident being Ish Kumar, Bhutani, the owner and the driver of the said car.

3. Smt. Nirmal Bhutani, the widow of Ish Kumar Bhutani deceased, the their two minor daughters Sanjana Bhutani and Tanesha Bhutani filed an application u/s 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act seeking Rs. 3 lacs as compensation for the loss suffered by them on account of the death of Ish Kumar Bhutani in this accident.

4. The Tribunal came to the finding that the accident in this case was attributable to the negligent act of the driver of the road roller in leaving it unattended on the road without any sign or indication to warn road user of it being there. A sum of Rupees 1,05,000/- was, consequently, awarded as compensation to the claimants.

5. The claimants in their appeal sought enhanced compensation while on behalf of the State of Haryana, liability in this case was sought to be denied on a number of grounds.

6. Mr. Harbhagwan Singh, Advocate-General, Haryana sought to contend at the very outset that a road roller did not fall within the definition of 'motor vehicle' under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 and consequently no application lay u/s 110-A of the said Act for compensation arising out of the accident in the present case.

7. 'Motor vehicle' has been defined by Section 2(18) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, as "any mechanically propelled vehicle adopted for use upon roads whether the power of propulsion is transmitted thereto from an external or internal source and includes a chassis to which a body has not been attached and a trailer, but does not include a vehicle running upon fixed rails or a vehicle of a special type adapted for use only in a factory or in any other enclosed premises".

8. It was the argument of the learned Advocate-General that a road roller could be said to fall within the definition set out above as it was a vehicle of a special type adapted for use in enclosed premises. He referred in this behalf to the testimony of R. W. 2 Shri A. C. Gupta, Assistant Engineer, who deposed that when any portion of the road is to be tarred, the portion is enclosed by empty drums. The learned Advocate-General sought to contend that as the sphere of operations of a road roller was always within an enclosed area it answered to the description of a vehicle of "a special type" adapted for use in "enclosed premises."

9. The expression "enclosed premises" occurring in Section 2(18) of the Motor Vehicles Act came up for consideration in Bolani Ores Ltd. and Another vs. State of Orissa, AIR 1968 Ori. 1. It was observed (para-9):

"Enclosed premises, has not been defined in the Act. In the absence of such definition, we may adopt the dictionary meaning of the said expression. In the Oxford English Dictionary, Vol. III, the meaning of the word 'enclose' has been given as "To surround (with walls, fences, or other barriers) so as to prevent free ingress or egress"." This was, thus, what the expression "enclosed premises" was taken to mean.

10. In dealing with the case of road roller it is to be borne in mind that a road roller of its own steam moves from one place of work to another. This is an important aspect of the matter as it was also held in Bolani Ores Ltd's case (supra) that if a vehicle is fit and suitable for being used on a road it is immaterial whether it runs on a private road or on a public road unless it is shown that it is of a special type adapted for use only in factories or enclosed premises and incapable of running on any other type of roads or public roads. A road roller is clearly not such a vehicle which can