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Judgment
Sunil Kumar Sinha, J.
Heard on admission.
By this writ petition, challenge is made to that part of order dated 30-1-2008 passed by the Addl. Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Bhatapara, in Claim Case No. 24/2007 by which the right of the petitioner to file written statement has been closed by the Tribunal by proceeding under Order 8 Rule 1 read with Rule 10 of the CPC.
The petitioner is an Insurance Company which has been impleaded as non-applicant No. 2 in the claim petition filed by the claimants/respondent Nos. 1 to 3 herein. The notice of the claim petition was served on the petitioner-Company on 31-12-2007. Counsel for the Insurance Company caused his appearance on 4-1-2008 and prayed for time for tiling written statement on which a date of 16-1-2008 was fixed. On 16-1-2008, some documents were filed by the claimants and again a lime was sought by the Insurance Company and it was granted upto 30-1-2008. On 30-1-2008, again certain documents were filed by the owner of the vehicle, i.e., respondent No. 4 herein and the Insurance Company further prayed for time to file written statement, but this time the Tribunal refused to grant time and ultimately it closed the right of Insurance Company to file written statement and after framing the issue, the matter was fixed for settling on 2nd February, 2008. It is stated that till now the evidence has not been taken and the date of evidence is now fixed as 26th of February, 2008.
Learned Counsel for the petitioner argues that the Claims Tribunal erred in law in strictly complying with the provisions of Order 8 Rule 1 read with Rule 10 of the CPC. He submits that according to the rules applicable for conducting proceedings of claim case, these provisions of CPC were not available to the Tribunal and the Tribunal has acted in excess of jurisdiction by strictly complying them in the matter of the petitioner. He refers to Rule 240 of M.P. (C.G.) Motor Vehicles Rules, 1994.
I have heard learned Counsel for the petitioner at length and have also perused the records of the writ petition.
Rule 240 of the M.P. (CG.) Motor Vehicles Rules, 1994 provides for procedure to be followed by the Claims Tribunal in holding enquiries. It provides for application of certain provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, in express words it says that save as otherwise expressly provided in the Act or these rules, the following provisions of the First Schedule to the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (5 of 1908) namely, those contained in Order V Rules 9 to 13 and 15 to 20, Order IX, Order XVIII Rules 3 to 10, Order XVI Rules 2 to 21, Order XVII, Order XXI and Order XXII Rules 1 to 3 shall apply to proceedings before a Claims Tribunal in so far as they may be applicable thereto.
A bare reading of these provisions would show that the provisions of Order 8 Rule 1 or Order 8 Rule 10 of CPC have not been made applicable by these rules to the proceedings to be drawn by the Claims Tribunal while holding the enquiries. Moreover, in the present case, the petitioner had caused appearance through its Counsel on 4-1-2008 and the matter was fixed for 16-1-2008 for filing written statement, on that date certain documents were filed, therefore, again time was sought and the matter was fixed for 31-1-2008 and on that date also copy of the policy was filed by the owner, respondent No. 4 herein, as stated by learned Counsel for the petitioner and the petitioner on this ground had prayed for time to file written statement but the time was denied and ultimately the Tribunal proceeded to close the right of the petitioner to file written statement taking recourse to the provisions of the Order 8 Rule 1 read with Rule 10, CPC.
In the present scenario of the case, I deem it appropriate to give an opportunity to the Insurance Company to file their written statement. Therefore, the impugned order is set aside. The Insurance Company is directed to file its written statement within a period of 15 days from today. The Claims Tribunal shall take the written statement on record and if necessary, shall recast the issues in light of the written statement and shall proceed to decide the claim petition in accordance with law.
The petition stands finally disposed of with the aforesaid observations.
It is made clear that this order has been passed ex parte and if any party feels aggrieved by this order, they shall be at liberty to approach this Court with a suitable prayer.
C.C. as per rules.