MUMBAI: Repairs of a motor vehicle are integral aspects of its movement, and it would be said to be in “use” while being repaired at a workshop or garage, the Bombay High Court has said while rejecting petition by an insurance company that challenged grant of compensation to the family of a welder who died after a gas tanker exploded during welding works in Chembur.
Event Context
A single judge bench of justice Jitendra Jain said the phrase “use of the motor vehicle” used in Section 147 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 cannot be given a restrictive meaning to mean that compensation can be awarded only when the accident occurs when the vehicle is moving on the road.
“The phrase ‘use of the motor vehicle’ would not only include active use of movement but also passive use of the motor vehicle for the purposes of its movement,” Justice Jain said while dismissing a petition filed by The New Indian Assurance Company Ltd, challenging an order of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal in Mumbai.
The Tribunal on August 3, 2020, allowed a claim petition filed by the family members of the deceased welder, Shafiq Atikurrahaman and ordered the tanker owner and the insurance company to pay them compensation of ₹8.26 lakh. The incident took place on May 19, 2015, when Shafiq was doing welding work on the fuel tanker when perhaps residual gas / fuel in the tanker resulted in a blast, causing severe injuries to the welder that led to his death.
The insurance company had approached the high court, challenging the award primarily on the grounds that Section 147 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 lays down the conditions in which motor accident claim compensation can be granted and the section uses the terms like “in use” and “public place”.
Match Outlook
Its counsel, advocate Devendranath Joshi, argued that at the time of the explosion, the vehicle was parked at a garage and therefore it can neither be said to be “in use” nor at a “public place”, as contemplated under Section 147, and therefore the Tribunal could not have granted compensation to the deceased welder’s family.
Justice Jain refused to accept the argument. The court said the phrase “in use” cannot be given a narrow interpretation and a vehicle cannot be said to be not in use only because it has been taken to a garage for repairs – which is part and parcel of its movements.
As regards the arguments about “public place”, the court said the submission canvassed by the insurance company’s lawyer that all the public should have a right of access to the place for it to be termed as “public place” cannot be accepted.
“There is no prohibition on any person to access a garage,” the court clarified. “Merely because the garage is a private property, it cannot be said that the public does not have a right of access. In the instant case, public would mean people who approach the garage either for repairing their vehicles or for buying any accessories, etc.,” the court added.
