Motor Accident Claim Tribunals (MACTs) cannot dismiss any claim petition on the ground of having been barred by the limitation period of six months from the date of the accident since they are statutorily mandated to treat the First Information Report (FIR) registered by the police itself as an application for compensation, the Madras High Court has ruled.
Justice V. Lakshminarayanan stated the police were bound to forward every FIR or First Accident Report (FAR) registered in connection with motor accidents to the jurisdictional MACT, and the latter were required to treat such reports as claim petitions and grant appropriate relief to the victims without waiting for the filing of a formal claim petition.
The judge also agreed with amicus curiae N. Vijayaraghavan that the claim petitions, if any, filed by the victims could only be treated as a reminder for the MACTs to take forward the proceedings that should have been initiated immediately on receipt of the FIR or FAR and marshalled further after the filing of the interim accident report and detailed accident report.
After tracing the history of limitation periods in motor accident cases and the advancements made so far, the judge wrote: “The upshot of the discussion is that on registration of an FIR, a claimant is entitled to present the petition without the fear of it being thrown out, on the ground of limitation with respect to accidents that had taken place after April 1, 2022.”
The judgement was delivered on a civil revision petition filed by motor accident victim Malaravan, whose claim petition was rejected by the MACT in Chennai on the ground of limitation. The petitioner attributed the delay in filing the claim petition to the time taken to recuperate from the fracture he had suffered in the accident on October 10, 2022.
The claim petition filed on April 19 this year was rejected on April 24 on the ground that it had not been presented within six months of the accident. Justice Lakshminarayanan set aside the rejection order and directed the tribunal to treat the claim petition as a reminder for the tribunal to proceed with the grant of just compensation.
