F.A.O.NO. 2544 OF 2001 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH F.A.O.NO. 2544 OF 2001 Date of decision:17th September, 2010 New India Assurance Company Limited, through its Regional Manager, Sector 17-A, Chandigarh .......Appellant Versus Dharamjit Kaur and others ........Respondents BEFORE: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN Present: Mr. Ashwani Talwar, Advocate, for the appellant. Mr. Amit Jaiswal, Advocate, for respondent No. 8. 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes/No 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?Yes/No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes/No K.Kannan, J.(Oral) 1. The grievance of the Insurance Company is that the court which had passed an order on 16.03.2001, allowing the Licencing Authority, Gwalior, to give a report to the Court regarding driving licence and in a report it was stated that it was not a valid licence, ought to have relied on the same and could not have reasoned that report was not true. It is stated at the bar that there was an administrative instruction from the High Court to all District Judges that in case where the Licencing Authority is at very far away place, F.A.O.NO. 2544 OF 2001 2 procedure of securing reports for verification of the licences shall be resorted to. Learned Counsel appearing for the Insurance Company states that he is prepared to take steps to summon the records and obtain the evidence through witness that there licence was not genuine. 2. Learned counsel appearing for the respondent objects to the same and contends that this licence had obtained renewal several times from Ambala and the owner had seen the licence, satisfied himself about its genuineness. However, the owner himself had not given any evidence regarding genuineness of the driving licence. 3. I am of the view that the insurer shall have an opportunity to prove what it is entitled to do under Section 149(2) of he Motor Vehicles Act, to join issue on the genuineness of the licence. The case would require to be adjudicated on the issue of the validity of the licence and whether the owner is entitled to indemnity from the insurer. 4. The award of the Tribunal in so far as, it cast the liability on the insurer is set aside. The matter is remitted to the trial court only on the issue relating to the genuineness of the driving licence. The Insurer is at liberty to take appropriate steps for the production of the register and attendance of a witness from the competitive authority. Owner is also at liberty to adduce evidence on the same. The matter does not get reopened as far as claimants are concerned. The liability of the insurer to the third party claimant is confirmed. F.A.O.NO. 2544 OF 2001 3 The award is set aside to limited extent as mentioned above. The appeal is allowed and the matter is remitted to the Tribunal at Patiala. 5. Parties are directed to appear before the Tribunal on 27.10.2010. [K.KANNAN] JUDGE 17th September, 2010 Shivani Kaushik