IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH FAO No.956 of 1990 (O&M) Date of decision:14.01.2011 Vidyawanti and another ....Appellants versus Ajmer Singh and others ..Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Sahil Kaushal, Advocate, for Mr. Akashdeep, Advocate, for the appellants. Mr. Natin Sarin, Advocate, for respondents 1 and 2. Mr. Inderjit Sharma, Advocate, and Mr. D.P.Gupta, Advocate, for the Insurance Company. ---- 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 counsel, who is present in Court namely, Mr.Sahil Kaushal, seeks for time on the ground that the counsel namely, Mr. Akashdeep, who is engaged to argue the case, is out of country. I am afraid, the case which is 21 years old cannot wait for the appearance of the arguing counsel for his return from foreign country. The case is, therefore, taken up and disposed of on its own merits. 2. The case was a case of a dead body being found on the road mauled by injuries. The case was said to be result of a three-wheeler that FAO No.956 of 1990 (O&M) - 2 - belonged to the 2nd respondent, toppling and crushing a passenger to death. From the post-mortem report, it only revealed that the injuries had been fairly extensive but a fall from the three-wheeler and getting crushed will not result such magnitude of injuries. The FIR itself did not make any reference to the involvement of the vehicle. The Tribunal found that the involvement of the vehicle had not been established and consequently, dismissed the appeal. 3. There was oral evidence of PW2, who stated that he was a fellow traveller with the deceased and the accident had taken place when the vehicle hit a kerb (called as verge) and it toppled crushing the deceased under the weight of the three-wheeler. He stated that he did not immediately report to the police although he was himself injured and boarded a train to go to Baroda. Since he was told by the driver of the three-wheeler that he would report the fact of accident to the members of the family, he did not report either to the police or to the members of the family. It appears that the police had examined him and recorded his statement under Section 161 CrPC and contradiction were elicited at the time of trial with reference to what he was alleged to have stated to the police, (i) that the vehicle hit the kerb and toppled which was not previously stated to the police, and (ii) that he was illiterate and that he did not know the registration number of the vehicle where, however, the vehicle's number had been given in the statement under Section 161 CrPC and (iii) that further he had not stated that the driver had informed him that he will report the matter to the family at the time when he gave a statement to the police. Even apart from the contradictions which were FAO No.956 of 1990 (O&M) - 3 - elicited, the kind of evidence that he gave before the Court hardly evokes any confidence. A person travelling alongside with the witness and who is crushed to death cannot be an incident that a person can simply ignore and proceed to Baroda especially when the deceased person was an acquaintance. To say that he believed the driver of the offending vehicle would himself go to report the matter to the family member is too artificial to explain. Again it is a most unnatural conduct for a person to go without even informing the police when the police station was on the way before he boarded a train. 4. The learned counsel for the appellant would urge that the owner of the vehicle had been examined, who stated that he had only one three-wheeler and he was himself driving the vehicle and that the alleged vehicle was said to have been involved in the accident was not in any way involved in the accident, could not be true, for, he later admitted in the cross-examination that there was yet another three-wheeler and that it was driven by some person, who was not cited as the driver of the vehicle on the date of the alleged accident. This piece of evidence, according to the learned counsel, would show that the owner of three- wheeler was trying to conceal an important fact from Court. I am not persuaded to accept a plea made by the learned counsel for the appellant that this quality of evidence is in any way so bad that one has to make an inference about the involvement of the vehicle. The appeal is dismissed. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 14.01.2011 sanjeev