IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH F.A.O. No. 170 of 1996 Date of decision: March 08, 2010 The New Sutlej Transport Company Jalandhar .. Appellant Vs. Gurbachan Singh and others .. Respondents F.A.O. No. 171 of 1996 New Sutlej Transport Company Private Limited .. Appellant Vs. Parminder Kaur and others .. Respondents Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice A.N. Jindal Present: Mr. M.L. Saini, Advocate for the appellant. Mr. N.K. Khosla, Advocate for the Insurance Company. A.N. Jindal, J This judgment of mine shall dispose of two connected appeal Nos.170-171 of 1996, having arisen out of the award dated 4.9.1995 passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Kapurthala, awarding compensation to the tune of Rs.50,000/- in faour of the respondents and against the appellant as well as Harbhajan Singh driver of the offending vehicle. Now the owner of the offending vehicle i.e. M/s New Sutlej Transport Company has come up in appeal. The main stake of the learned counsel for the appellant is that the appellant was held liable only on the ground that Harbhajan Singh performa respondent was not holding a valid driving licence at the time of accident. He has urged that the matter was referred to the D.T.O. Guhati about the verification of the driving licence, but the same has not so far been received, therefore, had the report been received in his favour, the Insurance Company could be held liable. F.A.O. No. 170 of 1996 & F.A.O. No. 171 of 1996 -2- Having heard the contentions and examined the impugned award, it transpires that the driving licence was issued by the Licensing Authority, Dehradun and it was renewed by the D.T.O. Hoshiarpur w.e.f. 21.6.1990 to 20.6.1993. Verification of the driving licence was got made from D.T.O. Hoshiarpur and it was found that it was the bogus licence and Ex.R2 is the copy of the verification report. Satnam Singh Clerk from the office of D.T.O. Hoshiarpur made a detailed statement disclosing about the renewal of the licence, photo copy of which Ex.R3 showing that the licence is bogus. Harbhajan Singh relied upon another driving licence photo copy of which is Ex.P1. This driving licence was got renewed on 8.12.1994 and valid up to 8.12.1997 and the said licence was projected to have been issued by the Licensing Authority Guhati. This appeal was preferred in the year 1995 and till today the appellant is not in possession of any such document showing that the second lience purported to have been issued by the Licensing Authority, Guhati is a valid one. As such, I have no option but to confirm the findings returned by the Tribunal on issues No.1 and 3 so also the findings returned by the Tribunal on the other issues. For the reasons as mentioned above, both the appeals being unmerited are hereby dismissed. March 08, 2010 (A.N. Jindal) deepak Judge