IMPORTANT POINT
The registered owner is liable to pay compensation.

JUDGMENT :

D.Y. Chandrachud, J.

1. An accident took place at about 7:30 pm on 27 May 2009 when Smt. Jai Devi and her nephew Nitin were walking down a street in their village. A motor vehicle driven by Rakesh in the reverse gear hit them. Nitin was run over by the rear wheel of the car and died on the spot. Smt. Jai Devi received multiple injuries. Two claim petitions were filed before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (‘the Tribunal’). One of them was by Smt. Jai Devi. The second was by Somvir and Smt. Saroj, the parents of Nitin. The vehicle involved in the accident (a Maruti-800 bearing Registration DL-3CC-3684) was registered in the name of Vijay Kumar, the First respondent. According to the First respondent, he had sold the vehicle to the Second respondent on 12 July 2007 prior to the accident and had handed over possession of the vehicle together with relevant documents including the registration certificate, and forms 29 and 30 for transfer of the vehicle. The Second respondent stated before the Tribunal that he sold the vehicle to the Third respondent on 18 September 2008. The Third respondent in turn claimed before the Tribunal to have sold the vehicle to the petitioner. The petitioner, in the course of his written statement claimed that he had sold the vehicle to Meer Singh. The succession of transfers was put forth as a defence to the claim.

2. By its award dated 6 October 2012, the Tribunal granted compensation in the amount of Rs 10,000/- to Smt. Jai Devi and of Rs.3,75,000/- on account of the death of Nitin, to his parents. The Tribunal noted that the registration certificate of the offending vehicle continued to be in the name of the First respondent. The Tribunal held the First respondent jointly and severally liable together with the driver of the vehicle. The vehicle was uninsured on the date of the accident.

3. The award of the Tribunal was challenged by the First respondent in appeal before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. A learned Single Judge of the High Court allowed the appeal on 25 January 2016 on the ground that there was no justification for the Tribunal to pass an award against the registered owner when there was evidence that he had transferred the vehicle and the last admitted owner was the appellant herein. In the view of the High Court, the Tribunal ought to have passed an award only against the appellant as the owner. In coming to this conclusion the High Court relied upon two decisions of this Court : HDFC Bank Limited v Reshma, (2015) 3 SCC 679 and Purnya Kala Devi v State of Assam, (2014) 14 SCC 142.

4. On behalf of the appellant, it has been submitted that the High Court has proceeded on a manifestly erroneous construction of the legal position. It has been urged that Section 2(30) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 indicates that the person in whose name a motor vehicle is registered is the owner and the only two exceptions to that principle are where such a person is a minor or where the subject vehicle is under a hire purchase agreement. The decision of this Court in Purnya Kala Devi (supra), it has been submitted, related to a situation where the offending vehicle had been requisitioned by a state government. Similarly, the decision in Reshma (supra) dealt with a situation where the vehicle had been financed against a hypothecation agreement. It was in this background that this Court held that the person in possession of the vehicle under a hypothecation agreement was to be treated as the owner. Having regard to the definition contained in Section 2(30), it was urged that the High Court was in error in foisting the liability on the appellant who is not the registered owner of the vehicle. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant submitted that in Pushpa alias Leela v Shakuntala, (2011) 2 SCC 240 the position has been clarified by holding that where notwithstanding the sale of a vehicle, neither the transferor nor the transferee have taken any step for change in the name of own