Accident claim — Legal representative — Married daughter — Motor Vehicles Act, section 166.

The appellant No. 1 Smt. Joy Minocha was daughter of deceased persons Naresh Arora and Smt. Bharti Arora. The other appellants are minor children of the appellant No. 1. The deceased persons had expired in a road accident. The appellant along with the minor children being legal heirs had filed petition for compensation. The Tribunal dismissed the claim petition on the ground that the appellant No. 1 was married daughter of the deceased persons, therefore not entitled to receive any compensation.

The question that arose before the High Court was whether any compensation is payable where the claim is filed by legal representatives of the deceased who were not dependent on them?

The Court observed that the expression ‘Legal Representative’ had not been defined in the Motor Vehicles Act or the Rules made thereunder. However, it has been defined in s.s (11) of section 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 which reads as under:

‘Legal representative’ means a person who in law represents the estate of a deceased person, and includes any person who intermeddles with the estate of the deceased and where a party sues or is sued in a representative character the person on whom the estate devolves on the death of the party so suing or sued;’

Almost in similar terms is the definition of ‘legal representative’ u/s.2(1)(g) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

The Court relying on the decision of Smt. Manjuri Bera v. Oriental Insurance Company Ltd., AIR 2007 SC 1474, observed that the right to file claim application has to be considered in the background of right to entitlement. Further section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act corresponds to section 110 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (old Act). It provides that an application for compensation may be made by all or any of the legal representatives of the deceased in case where death has resulted from the accident.

In view of the above it was held that though there is no loss of dependency, yet the claimants being legal representatives are entitled to inherit the estate of the deceased persons, therefore, in the facts of the present cases, the appellants were entitled to receive compensation under no fault liability in terms of section 140(2) of the Act. Hence the claim petitions was maintainable as filed by the legal representatives of the deceased.