“If the insurance company has no liability to pay at all, then it cannot be compelled by order of the Court to pay the compensation amount and later on recover it from the owner of the vehicle, a bench of Justices Markandeya Katju and Asok Kumar Ganguly said.
The judgement assumes significance as the bench while disagreeing with the number of earlier decisions requested the Chief Justice of India to constitute a larger bench to decide the issue.
In a number of earlier rulings as part of judicial activism, the apex court had ruled that insurance companies were liable to first pay compensation to the victim/dependents of an accident claim and later recover the amount from the vehicle owners responsible for the accidents.
Published 02 September 2009, 16:37 IST