SC reserves judgement on compliance of Motor Vehicles Act

New Delhi, June 18 (UNI) The Supreme Court today reserved its judgement on a petition seeking directions to all the states and Union Territories to strictly comply with the provision of section 158(6) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

Section 158 (6) of the act makes it mandatory for the police station concerned to send its investigation report in an accident case to the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) within 30 days from the registration of the case.

A vacation bench comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and P P Naolekar reserved the judgement after the arguments were concluded. The petitioner, General Insurance Council (GIC) and five other insurance companies have contended that at present 1.5 million cases are pending in different tribunals High Courts/ Supreme Court. Out of this over 3.5 lakh cases are pending for more than five years. They contended that huge backlog of cases and fresh cases of accidents claims can be cleared expeditiously in sec 158 (6) of the act if seriously complied with.

According to the petitioner, every year about four lakh new accident cases involving injury/ death are reported in the country and long pendency adds manifolds to the liability of insurers not only for the principal but also on the interest, which makes the operation and planning of the insurer extremely difficult.

There are 80 respondents in the petition which include all states, UT and their police heads as well as their home secretaries.

UNI