The defence of inevitable accident is not available if the accident was caused due to the negligence of the owner or driver of the vehicle.

( 1 ) THIS is art appeal under section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 ('the Act') against the award dated 30. 3. 1995 passed in M. V. Case No. 11 of 1992 by Vth Additional Motor Accidents claims Tribunal, Sagar.

( 2 ) FACTS giving rise to this appeal are thus: The appellant was travelling as a passenger in stage carriage bus No. MPK 9935 on 17. 4. 1983, owned by respondent corporation which was going from Sagar to Bhopal. At about 8. 50 a. m. near village matona, it collided with the roadside tree, as a result of which, the driver of the bus sevakram died at the spot and the appellant received severe injuries. Appellant was taken to Sagar Hospital. From there he was advised to take treatment at Indore and then at Ahmedabad for central fracture dislocation of left hip joint with disruption of sacroiliac joint with infraction fracture in head of femur. He also suffered a fracture in the ilio-ischial ramus with two steinmana pins in neck and subtrochanteric area, crossing outside the soft tissues. AW 1, Dr. Pravin Kanabar of Orthopaedics Hospital, Ahmedabad performed the operation and treated the appellant where steel rod was affixed. He remained under plaster and treatment from 17. 4. 83 to 15. 7. 1983. As a result of injuries the appellant suffered shortening of left leg by 1" and permanent disability of 35 per cent.

( 3 ) THE appellant claimed compensation of Rs. 2,00,000. The respondent corporation contested the claim by taking a plea of inevitable accident due to act of God. The Tribunal after appreciation of evidence on record dismissed the claim holding that the accident was inevitable due to act of God.

( 4 ) IT is well settled that in motor accident cases when plea of inevitable accident is raised the burden lies on the party who raises the plea. In other words, the person defending the claim has to show that his conduct was utterly without fault, i. e. , without negligence. In the legal sense the act of God (vis major) may be defined as an extraordinary occurrence or circumstance which could not have been foreseen and could not have been guarded against, or more accurately as an accident due to natural causes, directly and exclusively without human intervention. It is a direct violent, sudden and irresistible act of nature as could not, by any amount of ability, have been foreseen, or if foreseen, could not by any amount of human care and skill have been resisted. Some of the well-known circumstances of acts of God are: a violent storm at sea, an extraordinarily high tide, an unprecedented rainfall, an extraordinary flood, an earthquake, fire caused by lightning, an extraordinary frost, an extraordinary snowfall and like. They are in a sense inevitable accidents beyond the control of man. Vis major must be the proximate cause, the causa causans and not merely a causa sine qua non of the damage complained of. The mere fact that vis major co-existed with or followed on the negligence is no adequate defence. Before an act of God may be admitted as an excuse, the party taking the plea must have done all that he is bound to do. [see halsbury's Laws of England, 4th Edn. , vol. 9, p. 323, para 458 and Ratanlal and dhirajlal: The Law of Torts, 23rd Edn. by justice G. P. Singh, pp. 443-444].

( 5 ) ACCIDENTS may happen by reason of the play of natural forces or by intervention of human agency or by both. It may be that in either of these cases accidents may be inevitable. But it is only those acts which can be traced to natural forces and which have nothing to do with the intervention of human agency that could be said to be acts of God. If the act in its origin either in the whole or in part is due to the agency of man, whether in acts of commission or omission, of nonfeasance or of misfeasance, or in any other cause independent of the agency of natural forces, it will not be a case of act of God.

( 6 ) THE law is well settled that every mechanical defect or failure which causes or results in an accident can