Case: The New India Assurance Co. Ltd., Vs. Smt. Sheela Rani &amp; Ors

2. Brief facts leading to the filing of this appeal are given below :-The sixth respondent herein was the owner of a Fiat car bearing Registration No. RSM-9701. The said car was insured with the appellant-Insurance Company for the period 6.6.1976 to 5.6.1977. It appears that the sixth respondent sold the said car to the fourth respondent on 18.6.1976. This transfer was accepted on 24.6.1976 by the Regional Transport Authority, Jaipur. The said car met with an accident on 10.5.1977 in which one Moti Lal Jain, husband of the first respondent, died.3. A Claim Petition was filed before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Jaipur, in MAC No. 291/77 by the first and second respondents, widow and minor son of the deceased, respectively. The third respondent, mother of the deceased, was shown as respondent later on transposed as claimant in the Claim Petition. We are not concerned with the quantum of compensation in this appeal as the sole issue raised by the appellant-Insurance Company was with reference to its liability. In other words, according to the appellant, the transfer of the car by the sixth respondent to fourth respondent was not informed to it by the sixth respondent (transferor) as required under Section 103-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (hereinafter called the "Act") and, therefore, the accident having taken place subsequent to the transfer, the appellant-Insurance Company cannot be held liable. All the courts below, namely, the Tribunal, a learned Single Judge as also the Division Bench of the High Court have rejected such a contention holding that the appellant- Insurance Company was liable to pay the compensation.4. It is not in dispute that the fourth respondent (transferee) vide letters dated 23.6.1976 and 30.6.1976 had informed the appellant about the transfer of the car, to which there was no reply from the appellant. The contention raised on behalf of the appellant before the Tribunal and the High Court as well as in this court was to the effect that the intimation about the transfer by the transferee was not in accordance with the prescribed form and, therefore, it was not taken note of by the appellant-Insurance Company. Though, it was contended before the Tribunal and the High Court that no such letters said to have been sent under Certificate of Posting, were received by the appellant-Insurance Company, in the light of concurrent findings on facts by the Tribunal and the High Court, we cannot allow such contention to be raised in this Court.5. In coming to the conclusion that in the absence of proper intimation about the transfer by the transferor in the prescribed form, the Policy will not lapse, the learned Single Judge of the High Court placed reliance on a judgment of the Full Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Madineni Kondaiah and others v. Yaseen Fatima and others, reported in AIR 1986 A.P. 62.6. Applying the principles laid down in the said judgment, the learned Single Judge rejected the contention of the Insurance Company that it was not liable on the facts of this case. The Division Bench also rejected a similar contention and affirmed the view taken by the learned Single Judge after referring to some more cases.

Court's reasoning:
After carefully going through the facts and the ratio of the said judgment, we find that this judgment instead of supporting the appellant, it supports the view taken by the High Court. As a matter of fact, in the said judgment this Court has approved the ratio laid down in the decision of the Full Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Kondaiahs case.We are conscious that in the above judgment of this Court, the claim by the transferee was one relating to damage to the vehicle and not one relating to third party.A careful reading of the judgment of this Court, extracted as above, will clearly show that on the transfer of the vehicle about which intimation was given though not strictly as required under Section 103-A of the Act and in the absence of refusal from the insurer the Policy already given by the Insurance Company to the transferor will not lapse. As in the case of Complete Insulations (supra), in the present case also the transferee had intimated to the appellant-Insurance Company about the transfer of the vehicle in his favour though not in the prescribed form and sought transfer of the Insurance Policy. No reply was given by the appellant and in the absence of such reply the Certificate shall be deemed to have been transferred in favour of the transferee as per Section 103-A of the Act.