F.A.O. No. 2117 of 2002 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH F.A.O. No. 2117 of 2002 Date of decision: May 06, 2010 M/s New India Assurance Co. Ltd. .. Appellant Vs. Labh Kaur and others .. Respondents Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice A.N. Jindal Present: Mr. R.K. Bashmaboo, Advocate for the appellant. None for the respondent. A.N. Jindal, J The Insurance Company has come up in appeal against the award dated 11.10.2001 awarding compensation to the tune of Rs.1,00,000/- along with interest @ 9% per annum in favour of the claimants and against the respondents jointly and severally. The only argument advanced by the learned counsel for the Insurance Company is that, though the Tribunal observed while deciding issue No.5 that the licence was fake, yet, the award was passed against the Insurance Company, even the rights of recovery have not been given to the company as per latest law of the land. Arguments heard. Record perused. Though, the Tribunal has observed in para No.13 of the judgment that the licence, copy of which is Ex.R-4, appears to have not been genuinely issued by the Licensing Authority, Ludhiana, yet, in the same paragraph, it has observed that Mahesh Kumar owner of the vehicle was not, in any way, in the knowledge of the same. He could not be aware of such defect in the aforesaid licence at the time of employing Jasbir Singh respondent No.1. Here, it may be observed that the owner of the vehicle was imposed a duty to make bonafide enquiries about the licence and adjudge the driver to be competent to drive the vehicle and he was not F.A.O. No. 2117 of 2002 -2- supposed to go each and every place to find out the genuineness of the driving licence. Since the respondent has not made bonafide enquiries with regard to genuineness of the licence, therefore, the onus which lay upon him stood shifted and as such the Tribunal had rightly held that the vehicle being insured and the driver having a licence at that time, the Company also could not escape from the liability along with the owner and the driver. On conspectus of the observations made by the Tribunal it appears that they wanted to convey a message that where the owner never knew about the genuineness of he licence, he could not be fastened with the liability. From the evidence it appears that all the bonafide enquiries were made by the owner before employing the respondent No.1 as driver, therefore, in such circumstances, the owner could not be held liable. Consequently, while confirming the findings returned by the Tribunal on issue No.5, this appeal is dismissed. May 06, 2010 (A.N. Jindal) deepak Judge