A place is considered public if accessible to the public, even if privately owned, allowing the Tribunal to award compensation under the Motor Vehicle Act.

ORAL ORDER

1. The instant appeal under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 at the behest of Insurance Company challenges the judgment and award delivered in M.A.C.P. No.22 of 2014 whereby learned Motor Accident Claim Tribunal granted compensation of Rs.2,35,000/- with 9% interest per annum from the date of filing the claim petition till realization with proportionate cost under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988.

2. This appeal is filed in the year 2020. The claimants are not served. The owner of the offending vehicle is served and is represented by learned advocate Mr.Dhairyawan D. Bhatt. Looking to the trivial issue involved in the matter, with the consent of the learned advocates for both sides, the matter is taken up for final hearing.

3. The brief facts of the case are as under.

3.1 On 27.07.2013, at about 12.30 p.m. applicatns were working in Jay Ganesh Ceramic Factory and their house-hold kits was lying in the open land of factory, near house-hold kits, their minor son Arvind was sleeping by covering plastic cover. At that time one loader Tractor No.GJ-3EA-9020 was reversing by the opponent No.1 in a rash and negligent manner with excessive speed as a result of that loader Tractor ran over on the head of the minor son of claimants namely Arvind, and thus the accident took place. The claimants filed claim petition before the learned Tribunal which came to be partly-allowed. Hence, this appeal.

4. Heard learned advocate Mr.Tanmay Karia appearing for the Insurance Company and learned advocate Mr.Dhairyawan Bhatt appearing for the owner of the offending vehicle.

5. Learned advocate Mr.Karia vehemently submitted that the accident took place within the compound walls of the Jay Ganesh Ceramic Factory. It was not a public place but it was a place belongs to Jay Ganesh Ceramic Factory and as such, it is a private place. Therefore, he submits that the claim petition under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 was not maintainable, yet the learned Tribunal did not consider this submission. He took this Court through the findings of the learned Tribunal more particularly para 21 of the impugned judgment and award to say that learned Tribunal incorrectly gave finding that since the Insurance Company did not examine the owner of the factory or I.O. to prove the exact place of the accident, the defense raised by the Insurance Company that the road accident took place within for corners of compound of Jay Ganesh Ceramic Factory cannot be treated as a road accident within the private place. Upon above submission, learned advocate Mr.Karia submits to allow this appeal.

6. On the other hand, learned advocate Mr.Dhairyawan Bhatt appearing for the owner of the offending vehicle took this Court through the definition of public place stated in Section 2 (34) of the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988 to submit that if any person has access to the private place then user of such private place where public have access would be included into the definition of public place. He would further submit that in the compound of Jay Ganesh Ceramic Factory ordinarily persons have access and therefore in view of definition of public place, the spot of the incident could be treated as public place. Learned Tribunal has rightly assessed the said aspect and therefore, no interference is required to be made in the impugned judgment and award. No other and further submissions are made by learned advocates for either of the side.

7. Noticeably, the involvement of the vehicle in the road accident as well as road accident itself and the assessment of the compensation are not at quarrel. The only issue raised by the Insurance Company in the first appeal is that the spot of incident could not be treated as public place because as per the FIR which is relied upon by the claimant the accident took place without four walls of Jay Ganesh Ceramic Factory which is a private place owned by the owners of the factory and therefore, the Motor Accident Claim Tribunal cannot e