Civil Revision No.1309 of 2008 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No.1309 of 2008 Date of Decision:24.03.2009 Sadhna & anr. ....petitioners Versus Kuldeep Singh & Ors. .....respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RAKESH KUMAR GARG Present: Mr.Sanjay Singh,Advocate for the petitioners Mr.Alok Jain, Advocate for respondent No.1. **** RAKESH KUMAR GARG J. The claimant has filed this revision petition challenging the order dated 07.01.2008 passed by Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Fast Track Court, Gurgaon, whereby his application for amendment in the claim petition, to convert his application filed under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act to a petition under Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicles Act by restricting the income of the deceased to less than 40,000/- per annum has been rejected by relying upon a Division Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Himachal Road Transport Corporation versus Baldev Kumar Nayyar 2006(2)PLR 75. As per the averments made in the petition, husband of the petitioner met with an accident and died. Petitioner filed a claim petition mentioning the income of her husband as Rs.24,000/- per month. Thereafter, she moved an application for amendment in her claim. Motor Civil Revision No.1309 of 2008 2 Accident Claims Tribunal, Gurgaon vide its order dated 13.08.2007 allowed the proposed amendment and income of her husband was reduced from Rs.24,000/- to Rs.3,200/- per month. Petitioner moved another application for converting her claim petition under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicle Act into under Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicle Act. The aforesaid application was contested by the respondents stating therein that the application was an abuse of process of law as the petitioner had earlier sought amendment with regard to the income of the deceased which was not opposed by the respondents in good faith as there was no income bar for filing a petition under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicle Act, whereas, if the petition is filed under Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicle Act annual income of the deceased could not be exceeding Rs.40,000/- per annum. The petitioner did not disclose his intention of getting the claim petition converted into under Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicle Act. At the time of seeking amendment with regard to the income of the deceased by concealing his true intention, it was mentioned in the earlier application for amendment that by inadvertence and typing mistake Rs.24,000/- per month was written instead of Rs.3,200/- per month and thus,by this amendment, petitioner is seeking to scale down her income to bring it under Section 163-A of which is not permissible in law. The Tribunal, vide impugned order rejected the aforesaid prayer of the petitioner. Challenging the aforesaid impugned order, learned counsel for the petitioner has vehemently argued that the claim petition pending before the Tribunal was at an initial stage and there was no bar under the law to convert the petition filed under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicle Act into under Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicle Act and therefore the Tribunal has erred at law while passing the impugned order. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondents supported the impugned order Civil Revision No.1309 of 2008 3 and has argued that by way of amendment, petitioner cannot be allowed to scale down his income so as to make room for provisions of Section 163-A of the Act and in support of his case he has relied upon judgments of this Court passed in the case of Himachal Road Transport Corporation (Supra) and Ram Sarup versus Lakhpat Singh 2009(1) PLR 633. I have heard learned counsel for the parties. There is no dispute with the proposition of law as envisaged in Himachal Road Transport Corporation(Supra). After relying upon the aforesaid judgment and Deepak Girishbhai Soni and others versus United India Insurance Company Ltd. Baroda (2004-2)137 P.L.R 271 (S.C) and Gurmeet Singh versus Chandigarh Transport Undertaking and others (2007-2) 146 P.L.R 574, this Court held in the case of Ram Sarup(Supra) held that it is not open for a person to notionally scale down his income so as to invoke the provisions of Section 163-A of the Act and thereby defeating the very object of Section 163-A of the Act. From the facts of the present case, it is clearly established that petitioner had sought the amendment to reduce the income of the deceased from Rs.24,000/- to Rs.3,200/- per month by stating that it was an inadvertent and typographical error, which was allowed vide order dated 13.08.2007. However, petitioner filed the present application only after three days i.e.17.08.2007 seeking permission of the Tribunal for converting the claim petition under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicle Act into under Section 163-A of the Motor Vehicle Act. Thus, it is clearly established that the petitioner has in fact adopted a clever method to bye-pass the judgments of this Court in the case of Himachal Road Transport Corporation(Supra) and Ram Sarup(Supra)firstly by seeking amendment in the income from Rs.24,000/- per month to Rs.3,200/- per month and immediately thereafter seeking permission to convert his petition from under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicle Act into under Section 163-A of the Civil Revision No.1309 of 2008 4 Motor Vehicle Act. Thus, the petitioners cannot be allowed to circumvent the rule of law. It may also be noticed that there is no bar of income if the petitioner continues with his claim petition under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicle Act and no prejudice is going to be caused to him. Thus, I find no reason to interfere in the impugned order. Dismissed. (RAKESH KUMAR GARG) JUDGE 24.03.2009 neenu