When a vehicle owner fails to produce a driving license despite claiming its existence, an adverse inference is drawn under Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, establishing a breach of insurance policy, which entitles the insurer to 'pay and recover' the compensation from the owner.

This Misc. Appeal and connected Civil Revisions have arisen out of common award passed on 31/05/2024 by 5th Additional Member Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Chhindwara deciding claim cases Nos. 101/2019, 102/2019 and 103/2019 respectively. Appellant/Insurance Company in all the three cases is aggrieved of the finding of saddling it with the joint and several liberty to pay the compensation amount.

Brief facts of the cases are that claimant/respondent No.1 of all the three claim cases were travelling on a single motorcycle, which was being driven by claimant-Salman, when respondent No.2- Shubham dashed against their motorcycle, resulting into injuries to all three of them. Compensation amount of Rs.15,00,000/-, Rs.15,00,000/- and Rs.1,00,00,000/- were claimed respectively in claim case Nos. 101/2019, 102/2019 and 103/2019 by respective claimants namely Ram Bahadur, Manmeet and Salman. Learned Tribunal allowed their claim petitions by awarding Rs.64,093/-, Rs. 57,718 and Rs. 18,98,846/- in favour of respective respondent No.1/claimant by directing owner, driver and Insurance Company of the offending vehicle to pay this amount under their joint and several liability.

Appellant/Insurance company is aggrieved of said finding and has placed emphasis on the fact that driving license of the respondent No.2 was forged and thus, he was driving the offending vehicle in violation of terms and conditions of the insurance policy. Accordingly, a request has been made in M.A. 9283/2024 arisen out of claim case No.103/2019, Civil Revision No. 1138/2019 arisen out of claim case No.102/2019 and Civil Revision No. 1139/2019 arisen out of claim case No. 101/2019 to set aside the impugned award and exonerate the Insurance Company from liability to pay compensation amount.

Respondents No.1/claimants of all the three cases are contesting party here, while respondent Nos. 2 and 3, driver and owner of the offending vehicle, remained absent before this court, despite service of notice.

Appellant/Insurance Company had taken numerous grounds of defense before Tribunal, but before this Court, the only limited point pressed upon is that the respondent No.2 while driving the offending vehicle was not holding a valid and effective license and thus, there was a breach of condition of Insurance Policy. Accordingly, this Court has to decide only a limited issue and that is whether the appellant/Insurance Company was able to establish any breach of policy and if yes, what should be the extent of its liability to pay compensation.

Appellant/Insurance Company examined its witness - Sandeep to prove the terms and conditions of the Insurance Policy marked as Ex. D/1, the investigator report marked as Ex. D/2 and the certificate issued by RTO, Nagpur, as Ex. D/3 confirming that no driving license was issued by that office in favour of respondent No.2. The Tribunal did not believe his testimony for the reason that he was not authorized on behalf of Insurance Company to testify. It is not clear what kind of authorization was being sought from this witness. He was an employee of Insurance Company and definitely would have appeared before Tribunal for the testimony only upon the directions and authorization of his superior officer. Law permits any competent witness, conversant with the facts of the case, to testify in Court and there is no need to obtain a letter of authorization for that purpose. Further, if the Tribunal was not willing to give much credence to the testimony of this witness, wasn't it under an obligation to examine and appreciate the documents of exhibit D/1 and D/3.

Tribunal was of the opinion that information Ex. D/3, received by investigator of insurance company from RTO, Nagpur, was to be proved only through the testimony of the responsible officer/employee of that office and no one from that office was examined by the Insurance Company, but whether the formal proof of Ex. D/3 was really required.

Witness - Sande