Case: Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd Vs. Premlata Shukla

Deceased Shivnandan Prasad Shukla was travelling in a Tempo Trax for going to Allahabad from Bhopal. It collided with a truck. Registration Number of truck could not be noticed. The truck also could not be traced. A First Information Report was lodged by one of the occupants of the Tempo Trax. An investigation on the basis of the said First Information Report for commission of an offence under Section 304-A of the Indian Penal Code was registered against the driver of the said truck. As during investigation the truck could not be traced out, the case was closed. A Claim Petition was filed before the Motor Vehicles Accident Claims Tribunal against the driver, owner and the Insurance Company with which the Tempo Trax was insured. The Tribunal upon analyzing the materials brought on record by the parties, including the First Information Report, arrived at a finding of fact that the driver of the Tempo Trax was not driving the vehicle rashly and negligently. It, therefore, dismissed the claim petitionClaimants being aggrieved by and dissatisfied with the said Award preferred an appeal before the High Court. The High Court principally relying on the depositions of depositions of Shri R.K. Sharma and Smt. Premlata Shukla, wherein allegations were made that the tempo trax was driven in a rash and negligent manner, opined that the First Information Report having been legally not proved, the driver of the Tempo Trax should be held to be guilty of driving rashly and negligently.

Reasoning: 13. However, the factum of an accident could also be proved from the First Information Report. It is also to be noted that once a part of the contents of the document is admitted in evidence, the party bringing the same on record cannot be permitted to turn round and contend that the other contents contained in the rest part thereof had not been proved. Both the parties have relied thereupon. It was marked as an Exhibit as both the parties intended to rely upon them14. Once a part of it is relied upon by both the parties, the learned Tribunal cannot be said to have committed any illegality in relying upon the other part, irrespective of the contents of the document been proved or not. If the contents have been proved, the question of reliance thereupon only upon a part thereof and not upon the rest, on the technical ground that the same had not been proved in accordance with law, would not arise15. A party objecting to the admissibility of a document must raise its objection at the appropriate time. If the objection is not raised and the document is allowed to be marked and that too at the instance of a party which had proved the same and wherefore consent of the other party has been obtained, the former in our opinion cannot be permitted to turn round and raise a contention that the contents of the documents had not been proved and, thus, should not be relied upon.In Hukam Singh (supra), the law was correctly been laid down by the Punjab and Haryana High Court stating;8. Mr. G.C. Mittal, learned counsel for the respondent contended that Ram Partap had produced only his former deposition and gave no evidence in Court which could be considered by the Additional District Judge. I am afraid there is no merit in this contention. The Trial Court had discussed the evidence of Ram Partap in the light of the report Exhibit D.1 produced by him. The Additional District Judge while hearing the appeal could have commented on that evidence and held it to be inadmissible if law so permitted. But he did not at all have this evidence before his mind. It was not a case of inadmissible evidence either. No doubt the procedure adopted by the trial Court in letting in a certified copy of the previous deposition of Ram Partap made in the criminal proceedings and allowing the same to be proved by Ram Partap himself was not correct and he should have been examined again in regard to all that he had stated earlier in the statement the parties in order to save time did not object to the previous deposition being proved by Ram Partap himself who was only. It is not a case where irrelevant evidence had been let in with the consent of the parties but the only objection is that the procedure followed in the matter of giving evidence in Court was not correct. When the parties themselves have allowed certain statements to be placed on the record as a part of their evidence, it is not open to them to urge later either in the same Court or in a court of appeal that the evidence produced was inadmissible. To allow them to do so would indeed be permitting them both to appropriate and reprobate.