FAO No.1979 of 1998 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH 1. FAO No.1979 of 1998 DATE OF DECISION: March 1, 2011 ROHTASH & OTHERS ...APPELLANTS VERSUS RASHID ETC. ...RESPONDENTS 2. FAO No.2026 of 1999 DATE OF DECISION: March 1, 2011 ROHTASH AND ANOTHER ...APPELLANTS VERSUS FAJRI ...RESPONDENT CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN. 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? No 2. To be referred to the reporters or not? Yes 3. Whether the judgement should be reported in the digest? Yes ---- PRESENT: MR. R.S. KUNDU, ADVOCATE FOR THE APPELLANTS. MR. SUDHIR AGGARWAL, ADVOCATE FOR THE RESPONDENTS. K.KANNAN, J.(ORAL) 1. The appeal is against the award passed against the driver and owner of a road-roller against which a tractor-trolley had dashed and capsized. There were two claims filed, one for death and another for injury. The contention of the claimant was that the road-roller was going in front and when the tractor-trolley was overtaking the same, the road-roller turned to the right and dashed against the tractor resulting in the vehicle capsizing FAO No.1979 of 1998 -2- and making the tractor turned turtle. It was raised in defence that road- roller by the very nature of things cannot be driven rashly and negligently and more so in a case where it was not coming from the opposite direction, The driver of the tractor had attempted to overtake it without leaving sufficient gap and dashed against the road-roller and the tractor capsized. 2. The Tribunal rejected such a contention that a road-roller could not have been driven rashly and held that the driver of the road-roller was negligent. I find the reasoning of the Tribunal to be rather strange. It must be remembered that the tractor-trolley was trying to overtake the road-roller. A sudden turning of the road-roller is impossible. The contrivance itself is such that steering of the road-roller does not a admit of a sharp turn at all. It has to take a large arc in turning and even steering is mounted on a mechanism that rotates the steering freely which by application of mechanical advantage would require several turns of the steering before it could cause a mild turn. A sudden turning of the road-roller was impossible and it was clearly a case of poor judgement by the driver of the tractor who did not leave sufficient space between the road-roller and the tractor-trolley and after having hit against a heavier mass of a road-roller it capsized. The claim ought to have been only against the driver and the owner of the tractor, but for reasons best known, the case had been initiated only against the driver and the owner of the road-roller. I vacate the finding of the Tribunal and hold that the appellant would be made liable if at all only on the basis of no-fault liability and anchor the same to what the statute provided for the minimum for death at 25,000/- and for disability at 12,500/- at the relevant time. 3. The award shall stand modified to the above extent. FAO No.1979 of 1998 -3- 4. If any amount has been paid as awarded by the Tribunal already against the appellant, under the special circumstances and in the interest of justice I would let the same rest there and the appellant shall not have a right of recovery against the claimants. The appellant, however, shall be at liberty to take appropriate action for the contribution from the owner and driver of the tractor in appropriate independent proceedings, if so advised. 5. The appeals are allowed to the above extent. March 1, 2011 (K.KANNAN) Gulati JUDGE