F.A.O.NOs. 1922 to 1934 OF 2000 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH 1. F.A.O.NO. 1922 OF 2000 Date of decision:25th October, 2010 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Smt. Sulochana and others ........Respondents 2. F.A.O.No. 1923 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Smt. Savitri and others ........Respondents 3. F.A.O.No. 1924 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Smt. Sunhari Devi and others ........Respondents 4. F.A.O.No.1925 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Smt. Savitri and others ........Respondents 5. F.A.O.No.1926 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus F.A.O.NOs. 1922 to 1934 OF 2000 2 Sandeep and others ........Respondents 6. F.A.O.No. 1927 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Smt. Santosh and others ........Respondents 7. F.A.O.No. 1928 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Smt. Sumitra and others ........Respondents 8. F.A.O.No. 1929 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Sultan and others ........Respondents 9. F.A.O.No. 1930 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Rohtash nd others ........Respondents 10. F.A.O.No. 1931 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Satveer and others F.A.O.NOs. 1922 to 1934 OF 2000 3 ........Respondents 11. F.A.O.No. 1932 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Dariya Singh and others ........Respondents 12 F.A.O.No. 1933 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Bhanu and others ........Respondents 13 F.A.O.No. 1934 of 2000 United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Regional Office, Sector 17, Chandigarh through its duly constituted Attorney. .......Appellant Versus Bhura Ram and others ........Respondents BEFORE: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN Present: Mr. Inderjeet Sharma, Advocate and Mr. Pardeep Bedi, Advocate, for the Insurance Company. None for the respondents. 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. All the above 13 appeals arise out of the same accident. F.A.O.NOs. 1922 to 1934 OF 2000 4 The owner of the offending vehicle is reported to have refused to accept the summon and the office report is that a copy of the summon has been affixed at his house. I treat this service as sufficient. There is no appearance for the owner. He is proceeded ex parte. The driver of the offending vehicle has not been served and it is reported that he is not residing at the given address. Since the owner shall be vicariously liable if ever there is liability for alleged negligent act of the driver. I treat the deemed service on the owner as sufficient for taking up the appeal on merits. 2. The only point for consideration in all these 13 appeals is the consideration of the defence of the Insurance Company that the driver did not have a valid driving licence which is based on the copy of the licence secured. The insurance company sought to produce a clerk Nirbhay Kumar from the Licencing Authority that showed that the licence had not been issued by the Licencing Authority. It was elicited through him that there had been 7-8 licencing authorities in Kangra and that had been taken by the Tribunal to be sufficient to hold that the insurance company had not established the burden correctly. When a particular witness makes a reference to the licence number and gives evidence to the effect that the particular licence number was issued to some other person, there is no scope for the Tribunal to conjecture that it could have been issued through some other licencing authority. This is so because under the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, Rule 23 provides for a state register of driving F.A.O.NOs. 1922 to 1934 OF 2000 5 licence and that register is maintained in Form 10. Form 10 prescribes a serial number and against the same serial number there could be no issue from some other licencing authority. If one authority has issued a licence against a particular licence number, it shall not become possible by virtue of Rule 23 for any other authority to issue a driving licence for the same licence number. In other words, within the same State or District there shall be only one issue of licence against any one particular licence number. The reasoning adopted by the Tribunal to cast the liability on the insurance company without providing for right of recovery which was evidently a case of breach of terms of the policy is erroneous. The awards of the Tribunal are required to be modified. 3. The Insurance Company's liability shall only be to satisfy the claimants and shall have a right of recovery against the owner in all the cases. The awards of the Tribunal stand modified and appeals are allowed to the above extent. [K.KANNAN] JUDGE 25th October, 2010 Shivani Kaushik