The legal basis for payment of compensation in this country continues to be the common law or the law of Torts as recognised in Anglo Saxon Jurisprudence. Subject to any statutory modification to the general rule, a right to claim compensation arises only when the person against whom the claim is made is proved to have failed to perform a legal obligation causing an injury to any other person or to have committed an act of omission or commission causing a legal injury to the person making the claim. The Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 which was a precursor to the 1988 Act provided a statutory mechanism for enforcement of the rights and obligations flowing under the law of Torts or the common law. Such statutory support notwithstanding if a person was not legally liable to pay any compensation, the support of statutory mechanism provided by the Act did not make him so, except in situations and the extent the statute made a specific departure from that general principle. The question whether proof of fault was essential for claiming compensation under the Motor Vehicles Act first fell for consideration of the Apex Court in Minu B. Mehta v. Balkrishna Ramchandra Nayan 1977 ACJ 118. The court held that the proof of fault of the owner or driver of the vehicle involved in the accident that caused death or injury to the claimant or his legal heir was essential. It observed:
“The right to receive compensation can only be against a person who is found to compensate due to the failure to perform a legal obligation. If a person is not liable legally he is under no duty to compensate anyone else. The Claims Tribunal is a Tribunal constituted by the State Government for expeditious disposal of the motor claims. The general law applicable is only common law and the law of Torts…
It may be that a person bent upon committing suicide may jump before a car in motion and thus get himself killed. We cannot perceive by what reasoning the owner of the car could be made liable.”
The above position in law continued to hold good till Parliament amended the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 by amending Act 47 of 1982, incorporating Section 92-A which introduced for the first time the concept of payment of compensation without proof of fault or negligence on the part of the owner or driver of the vehicle. The objects and the reasons for the notable shift in the settled legal position were summarised as under:
“Having regard to the nature of circumstances in which road accidents take place, in a number of cases it is difficult to secure adequate evidence to prove negligence. Further, in what are known as ‘hit-and-run’ accidents, by reason of the identity of the vehicle involved in the accident not being known, the persons affected cannot prefer any claims for compensation. It is, therefore, considered necessary to amend the Act suitably to secure strict enforcement of road safety measures and also to make, as a measure of social justice, suitable provisions, first, for compensation without proof of fault or negligence on the part of the owner or driver of the vehicle, and secondly, for compensation by way of solatium in cases in which the identity of the vehicle causing an accident is unknown.”
In Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation v. Ramanbhai Prabhatbhai 1987 ACJ 561, the Apex Court recognised that the provisions of Section 92-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 were a clear departure from the common law principle that a claimant should establish negligence on the part of the owner or driver of the motor vehicle before claiming any compensation for the death or permanent disability caused on account of use of any such vehicle. The court held a pedestrian entitled to recover damages on the principle of social justice regardless whether or not he was in a position to prove negligence on the part of the owner or driver of the vehicle involved in the accident. The court observed:
“Where a pedestrian without negligence on his part is injured or killed by a motorist, whether negligently or not, he or his legal representatives, as the case may be, should be entitled to recover damages if the principle of social justice should have any meaning at all.
This part of the Act is clearly a departure from the usual common law principle that a claimant should establish negligence on the part of the owner or driver of the motor vehicle before claiming any compensation for the death or permanent disablement caused on account of a motor vehicle accident. To that extent the substantive law of the country stands modified.”
In K. Nandakumar Vs. Managing Director, Thanthai Periyar Transport Corporation Ltd., , a Division Bench of the Madras High Court took the view that even for purposes of Section 92-A of the old Act it was necessary for claimant to prove that he was not in any manner responsible for the accident. In cases where the injured or dead was himself responsible for the accident, payment of compensation on no fault basis was not permissible even under the provisions of Section 92-A of the old Act. The court in the process dissented from the contrary view taken by other courts in the country including High Courts of Orissa, Bombay, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. That view was successfully assailed in appeal before the Supreme Court in K. Nandakumar Vs. Managing Director, Thanthal Periyar Transport Corpn., . The court held that the provisions of subsection (4) of Section 92-A made it clear that payment of compensation on no fault basis could not be rejected even if the person making claim was himself responsible for such death or permanent disablement. Sub-section (4) of Section 92-A reads as under:
“A claim for compensation under Subsection (1) shall not be defeated by reason of any wrongful act, neglect or default of the person in respect of whose death or permanent disablement the claim has been made nor shall the quantum of compensation recoverable in respect of such death or permanent disablement be reduced on the basis of the share of such person in the responsibility for such death or permanent disablement.”
The decisions of the Supreme Court have thus settled the legal position insofar as payment of compensation on no fault basis u/s 92-A of the old Act and Section 140 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 is concerned. Regardless whether the person injured or killed in a road accident was himself partially or wholly responsible for the accident, compensation under the said provision is payable to the victim or his legal heirs.