Post-omission of limitation provisions in S.166 of the Motor Vehicles Act, claim petitions reinstated for adjudication despite prior dismissal.

1.These two appeals (M.A. Nos. 1656 and 1657 of 1999) have been against the common award dated 28-6-1999, passed by the Additional Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Soorajpur, Surguja in Claim Case Nos. 97/98 (Ganpat Koir v. Inder Prasad) and 35/98 (Ketki Kumari v. Inder Prasad), therefore both the appeals are being decided by this order.

2. The, brief facts, in nutshell, are that on 28-2-1979 Ganpat and Motilal were going to the weekly market Odsi Bazar on the Truck, bearing registration No. MPL 3045 after loading their belongings in the truck. The said truck was owned by the non - applicant No. 1 and at the relevant time the non - applicant No. 2 was its driver. On that day at Village - Baijnathpur near Langda Ghoda Ghat due to rash and negligent driving of the non - applicant No. 2 the truck turned turtle. In that accident Ganpat and Motilal both received grievous injuries and later on Motilal succumbed to the injuries received in the accident.

3. The injured Ganpat filed Claim Case No. 97/98 for award of total compensation of Rs. 12,00,000/- and Ketki Kumari (daughter of the deceased Motilal) filed Claim Case No. 35/98 for award of total compensation of Rs. 5,00,000/-. Both the claim cases were filed under S.166 of the Motor Vehicles Act and were tried together by the Claims Tribunal.

4. It was noticed by the Tribunal that the accident had occurred on 28-2-1979 whereas the claim petitions were filed on 26-3-1998 and 7-8-1998 and as such, learned Tribunal by the impugned common award dated 28-6-1999 dismissed both the claim petitions on the ground of limitation as at the time of accident sub-section (3) of S.166 of the Motor Vehicles Act , 1988 was in existence, which provided as under :
"No application for such compensation shall be entertained unless it is made within six months of the occurrence of the accident:
Provided that the Claims Tribunal may entertain the application after the expiry of the said period of six months but not later than twelve months, if it is satisfied that the applicant was prevented by sufficient cause from making the application in time."

5. However, the above quoted provision was repealed w.e.f. 14-11-1994.

6. Now, the question has come before this Court that at this stage when the provisions of sub-section (3) of S.166 of the Act, 1988 have been omitted w.e.f. 14-11-1994, can this Court in the instant appeal ignore the hurdle of limitation and remit it to the Claims Tribunal for adjudication on merits as there is no limitation prescribed for filing such a claim petition. Further, a question has also arisen that if no claim petition would have been filed during the existence of sub-section (3) of S.166 of the Act, 1988 and a claim petition was filed after its repealing i.e. 14-11-1994 when no period of limitation was prescribed for filing such a claim petition, the Tribunal was bound to entertain the claim petition and decide the same on merits.

7. In the above regard our attention has been drawn towards the decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Dhannalal v. D. P. Vijayvargiya , 1996 (4) SCC 652 : AIR 1996 SC 2155 in which case the principle has been laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court taking the illustrative view in paragraph 7, the Tribunal was directed to entertain the claim petition. Para 7 of decision is reproduced hereinbelow :
"7. In this background, now it has to be examined as to what is the effect of omission of sub-section (3) of S.166 of the Act. From the amending Act it does not appear that the said sub-section (3) has been deleted retrospectively. But at the same time, there is nothing in the amending Act to show that benefit of deletion of sub-section (3) of S.166 is