IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH -.- FAO No. 1941 of 2009 Date of Decision:- 27.4.2009. ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. .... Appellant. Versus Rajni Bala & Ors. .... Respondents. CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT GUPTA. Present:- Mr. Subhash Goyal , Advocate, for the appellant. Hemant Gupta, J (Oral). Challenge in the present appeal is to the Award dated 9.12.2008 rendered by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Rupnagar, thereby awarding a sum of Rs.4,75,000/- as compensation on account of death of Surinder Kumar in a motor vehicular accident. The deceased Surinder Kumar was traveling in three-wheeler No. PB-12-G-4915 which met with an accident with Swaraj Mazda vehicle bearing registration No. PAT 9484, driven by Himat Singh and insured by the present appellant. Learned counsel for the appellant argued that First Information Report in respect of incident was lodged by one Jaspal S/o Naurata Ram whereas Jaspal Singh has not examined as witness to prove the manner of accident. Instead, one Harish has been introduced as an eye-witness. Therefore the finding recorded that the accident was caused due to rash and negligent driving of Himat Singh, driver of PAT 9484 is illegal and not sustainable in law. FAO No. 1941 of 2009 -2- Learned counsel for the appellant has also argued that the police officials have appeared as witnesses and they deposed that during investigations they could not trace out the offending vehicle as the number of the vehicle was not disclosed in the first information report. It is well settled that Tribunal is to decide the question of negligence on the basis of evidence produced before it. May be Jaspal Singh has lodged the First Information Report, but that is not the determinative of the negligence of the driver of the offending vehicle. On the basis of oral evidence, the Tribunal has held that Himat Singh was driving the vehicle rashly and negligently. It was open to the appellant to examine Jaspal Singh S/o Naurata Ram in respect of manner of accident. Having failed to do so, the finding recorded by the Tribunal cannot be stated to suffer from irregularity and illegality warranting interference of this Court. In view of the above, this appeal has no merit. The same is dismissed. An amount of Rs.25,000/- deposited as condition precedent to file the present appeal be remitted to the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Rupnagar, for its disbursement to the claimants in accordance with law. April 27, 2009 (Hemant Gupta) tripti Judge