Telangana high court seeks report on motor accident cases

Hyderabad: Expressing deep concern over the lacklustre attitude of the police and the officials of the state government on Tuesday, the Telangana High Court directed the DGP to submit a statistical report regarding registration of motor accident cases and how many of them were sent to the Claims Tribunal under the Motor Vehicles Act.

The law mandates the authorities to forward a copy of the report within 30 days from the recording of information, to enable the victims or their families to claim compensation expeditiously.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice A. Rajasheker Reddy was dealing with a taken-up petition on the piling up of cases related to motor accident claims.

Justice Radhakrishnan said, “More than 18 years have passed after the SC passed judgment in Jai Prakash vs National Insurance Comp-any Ltd., case but this court now has no assured answer from any of the stakeholders of governance that the provisions of the MV Act have been properly worked upon and effectively operated in the state of Telangana.”

Therefore, the court was of the view that a comprehensive and cohesive consideration of this matter would continue under Article 226 of the Constitution to ensure that the operation of the directions of the SC was carried forward.

The court directed the DGP to file a statistical report as to how many police stations had registered motor accident cases and how many reports had been sent to the jurisdictional motor accident officer in terms of sub-section 6 of Section 158 of MV Act, 1988.

The court directed the Registrar General of the High Court to take requisite action for clubbing all the reports from all claims tribunal and to place the reports before the bench on or before June 10 and  adj-ourned the case to June 11.

The Registrar General was directed to ensure that requisite circulars and reminders are sent to the claims tribunals alerting them to the mandatory guidelines issued by the Supreme Court.

The magistrate would keep track of the issue pertaining to the motor accident cases which occurred in their jurisdiction and ensure that the reports filed by the incharge police officer of the police stations were forwarded to the tribunal for expeditious action on the claims.