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( 2026:HHC:10488 )

IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH AT SHIMLA FAO (MV) No. 150 of 2025

Decided on: 06.04.2026

Virender Kumar Walia (deceased) through LRs …..Appellants

Versus Sheela Devi & Ors. .…Respondents

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Coram o The Hon'ble Mr. Justice Sushil Kukreja, Judge.

1 Whether approved for reporting?

For the appellants: Ms. Shalini Thakur, Advocate.

For the respondentsu: Mr. Upasna Thakur, Advocate, vice Mr. Karan Singh Kanwar, o Advocate, for respondents No. 1 to 4.

Mr. Munish Kumar and Ms. Raksha Thakur, Advocates, vice Mr. Jagdish Thakur, Advocate, for

respondent No. 6.

h ____________________________________________________

Sushil Kukreja, Judge (oral)

i By way of instant appeal, the appellants, who were respondents No. 1(A) and 1(B) before the learned Tribunal below, are laying challenge to the award, dated 20.12.2024, passed by learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal-II, Nahan, District Sirmaur, H.P., in Petition No. 105-N/2 of 2019, whereby the claim

petition filed by the claimants was allowed.

2. The perusal of the record reveals that respondent No. 5, Sahi Ram, has expired on 13.11.2020, i.e. during the

1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? yes

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pendency of the claim petition before the learned Tribunal below, whereas, the impugned award was passed by the learned Tribunal below on 20.12.2024. The award, therefore, has been passed by the learned Tribunal below without takin.g note of the death of respondent No. 5. The impugned award, therefore, admittedly is against a dead person, i.e., respondent No. 5, Sahi Ram. There is no quarrel so as to the fact that respondent No. 5 has expired well before hearing arguments in the claim petition by the learned Tribunal belrow. No doubt, application, i.e. CMP(M) No. 2274 of 2025, for bringing on record the legal representatives of respondent No. 5, Sahi Ram has been filed in the present appeal, however, whether the appeal on his death stands abated for want of consequential steps is a question to be gone into and

determined by learned Tribunal below.

3. It is settled proposition of law that where a party dies in a pending suit/appeal and judgment/decree is passed in ignorance to such death, the question of substitution of his/her legal heirs and setting aside the abatement, if any, can only be considered by the Court, before whom the suit/appeal was pend-

ing at that time.

4. In Jagan Nath and others versus Smt. Ishwari Devi, 1988 (2) Shimla Law Cases 273, it has been held that the question of substitution of legal representatives of a deceased

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party and the abatement of the suit/appeal for want of consequential steps has to be decided by that very Court where at the time of death of such party, the lis was pending. Paragraph

6 of the aforesaid judgment reads as under:- .

“6. The fact that one of the several defendant- appellants against whom an in divisible decree was passed by the trial Courtf, had died during the pendency of the appealo before the lower appellate court, and steps to bring his legal representatives on the record of the appeal had not been taken within the prescribed period, being undisputed, it must be heldr that the appeal had already abated prior tou the decision of the lower appellate court dated April 9, 1987. The decree of the lower aoppellate court was thus a nullity as it had been passed also against a dead person. The legal

Cposition is not in dispute. What is the course which should normally be adopted in a situation like this, has been succinctly stated in the decision of the Calcutta High Court in Kanailal’s case (supra). It was observed by the Division Bench, after noticing the decisions of various High Courts and the Supreme Court, that:

….. In such circumstances, in our opinion the uniform procedure followed by the other High Cour