Mere Fact That Scooter Driver Only Had Learners Licence Wouldn’t Necessarily Lead To The Conclusion Of Contributory Negligence: Supreme Court
|The Supreme Court enhanced the motor accident compensation for the Appellant, a Block Development Officer who lost both his legs in a road accident.
The Supreme Court clarified that the mere fact that the driver of the scooter had only a learners licence would not necessarily lead to a conclusion of contributory negligence on the part of the scooter driver.
The Court enhanced the motor accident compensation for the Appellant, a Block Development Officer who lost both his legs in a road accident, holding that he is entitled to compensation from the insurer of the offending vehicle. Earlier, the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (Tribunal) had held that the negligence on the trailer driver was only partial and the scooter driver too contributed to the accident by his negligence.
A Bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K Vinod Chandran held, “Having found the trailer to be driven rashly and negligently, we do not think that the mere fact that the driver of the scooter had only a learners licence would necessarily lead to a conclusion of contributory negligence on the part of the scooter driver. There can be no negligence found on the scooter driver also by the mere fact that the accident occurred on a collision at the tail-end of a long trailer, when the scooter driver had better visibility; which is a question of fact liable to be proved and not merely presumed.”
AOR Kunal Chatterji represented the Appellant, while AOR Amit Kumar Singh appeared for the Respondents.
Brief Facts
The accident occurred in 1999, when the Appellant, riding pillion on a scooter, was struck by a rashly driven trailer. The Tribunal initially awarded the compensation attributing partial negligence to the scooter driver, who had only a learner’s license. The Patna High Court upheld the decision, leading to the Appeal before the Supreme Court.
Court’s Reasoning
The Court referred to its decision in Sunita v. Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (2020), wherein it was held, “In a motor accident claim, there is no adversarial litigation and it is the preponderance of probabilities which reign supreme in adjudication of the tortious liability flowing from it.”
“In fact, the Tribunal, on a mere imaginative surmise, found that since the scooter collided with the tail-end of the trailer, it can be presumed that the driver of the scooter was not cautious, which in any event is not a finding of negligence,” the Bench noted.
Consequently, the Court held, “On the above reasoning, we find that that the Tribunal erred in finding contributory negligence of the scooter driver and the High Court too committed a similar error in affirming it. As we noticed, absolving the scooter owner/driver of the contributory negligence is perfectly valid even without his presence in the present proceedings or in the appeal before the High Court since it does not, at all, prejudice him. The appellant is entitled to compensation from the insurer of the offending vehicle, which is unequivocally found to be the trailer; which is covered by a valid policy as admitted by the respondent-insurance company.”
Accordingly, the Supreme Court allowed the Appeal.
Cause Title: Srikrishna Kanta Singh v. The Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 394)
Appearance:
Appellant: AOR Kunal Chatterji; Advocates Maitrayee Banerjee and Rohit Bansal
Respondents: AOR Amit Kumar Singh and Hiren Dasan; Advocates K Enatoli Sema, Chubalemla Chang, Prang Newmai, Mahendra Mali and Deepanshu Rana