FAO NO. 2749 OF 1998 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH FAO NO. 2749 OF 1998 Date of decision: 1st July, 2010 The New India Assurance Company Limited ..........Appellant Versus State of Haryana and others .........Respondents Before: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN Present: Ms. Veena Ashwani Talwar, Advocate with Mr. Rahul Garg, Advocate, for the appellant. None for the respondents. 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? K.Kannan, J.(Oral) 1. The ground of challenge in the appeal filed by the Insurance Company is the rejection of plea for restriction of liability to Rs. 6,000/- as damage to property of a third party. It was a case of collision between a truck and the bus and the claimant was a bus owner namely the Haryana Roadways Transport Corporation against the truck owner and the insurer. It is not in dispute that the bus could claim only as a third party against the insured the owner of the truck and against the insurer of the truck. The policy copy had been filed in the Court and admitted without any objection and no evidence was let into FAO NO. 2749 OF 1998 2 dispute the policy. 2. The Tribunal while adverting to the issue of limit of liability held that the copy of license cannot be relied on when no one gave reference to the authenticity of the document. If a secondary evidence is admitted without any objection, it ought not be possible for the claimant to contend that the document can be relied on. The policy copy which is produced in Court showed that it was a type of policy that covered only the liability as statutorily required to be covered under Section 147 clause 2 of the M.V. Act which provides that any policy of insurance shall cover any liability in respect of damage to any property of a third party upto a limit of Rs. 6000/-. The right of enforcement of the claim shall therefore stand restricted only Rs. 6,000/- and the claim in excess before the Tribunal for loss to property is not tenable. 3. The award of the Tribunal is modified to restrict the liability of the insurer only to Rs. 6000/- and the appeal is allowed on the above terms. [K.KANNAN] JUDGE 1st July, 2010 Shivani Kaushik