New Delhi, Sep 9 A Delhi Motor Accident Claims Tribunal has held that filing of a chargesheet against a driver only prima facie indicates his alleged involvement in rash and negligent driving and cannot, by itself, be treated as conclusive proof for awarding compensation.
Presiding Officer Vijay Kumar Jha said this while rejecting a compensation claim petition filed by the family of Tapas Mandal, who had died after being hit by a Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) bus near Ramprashtha traffic signal in Delhi on August 18, 2019.
The order dated September 8 said, "The tribunal finds that the petitioners have failed to discharge the burden of proving, by credible and reliable evidence, that the accident dated August 18, 2019, occurred on account of the rash and negligent driving of respondent No. 1 (bus driver)."
The tribunal said that it has to independently assess the evidence placed before it and it cannot mechanically rely on the investigating officer's conclusion contained in the chargesheet.
The deceased's family claimed that the DTC bus, driven by Ajay Sharma, was being driven rashly and negligently and had hit the motorcycle from behind. A criminal case was registered and a chargesheet was subsequently filed against Sharma.
The respondents, however, contended that Mandal was driving on the wrong side of the road and had collided head-on with the bus. The bus driver also claimed that he was driving within the permissible speed limit.
The tribunal found significant contradictions in the testimony of a bus marshal who was presented as a witness to the accident. It also noted that the investigating officer's opinion that the bus had hit the motorcycle from behind was undermined by the mechanical inspection reports and the pattern of damage to the vehicles.
It said that the damage to the front windscreen of the bus and the front portion of the motorcycle was more consistent with a frontal or near-frontal collision than a rear-end impact.
It stressed that although Supreme Court judgments recognise a chargesheet as prima facie evidence of negligence in motor accident claim proceedings, the tribunal must examine the evidence independently and reach its own conclusion on the balance of probabilities.
"The tribunal would have been under no obligation to conduct any further inquiry except quantifying the quantum of compensation and would have allowed each and every claim petition in which the chargesheet would have been filed," it said.
"Filing of the chargesheet" cannot make the tribunal a "slave to the opinion of the Investigating Officer", the tribunal observed, saying such an approach would undermine its statutory jurisdiction to conduct an inquiry.
