Who Should Compensate For a Road Accident: Registered Owner or User?


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Akash1886

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Buddies,

Having read an article here. It does raise a question as to who should be held liable in a road accident for paying / compensating the damages? Many of us might have unfortunately faced such a situation so would like to know your views on the same.

The HC had directed one Naveen Kumar to pay compensation of Rs 5.23 lakh to the family of a person who was killed after being hit by his car. Challenging the order of the HC, advocate Rishi Malhotra, appearing for Kumar, contended that the car was not registered in his name and he could not be asked to pay compensation.

Referring to the Motor Vehicles Act, Malhotra told the bench that law recognised registered the owner and not the 'real owner' of the vehicle and only the registered owner could be made liable to pay compensation.

He said the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal had rightly held that only registered owner be made liable to pay compensation and the HC erred in setting aside the tribunal's order by wrongly interpreting the Act.
Regards

Akash
 
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What does that mean? The driver had stolen the car? Or, the driver is not ready to pay the compensation siting the reason that he didn't transfer the car in to his name?
If the registered owner needs to pay the compensation, then the current owner must be charged with theft and murder.
This is what people think now. They can jump the rules and when caught, find some one to make a scapegoat. Ownership transfer is the liability of the person who buys the car.
Also need a law to take care of these lawyers.
 
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I had some bitter taste of such incident. I owned a D390 which i sold after using for an year. The bike was registered in my name. upon selling the bike, i filled out the TO form and signed the documents and a delivery agreement was signed.

But the person who got the bike did not do the onwership transfer. in the mean time the bike was involved in a accident with a another bike. Luckily it was not a death it was a injury for the other guy. This guy left the bike and fled the accident spot. I was called by the police as the bike was in my name. To make it worse, the insurance has expired the previous day.

The cops asked me to pay for the guys injury and some bribe for them. I showed them the deilivery agreement but they did not agree. After soughting the help of a lawyer, finding the guy who bought the bike from me. I was releived from the case. I payed for the name transfer and insurance for him and the case was registered on his name.

Although the person who buys the vechile is the one to make the onwership transfer, it's better for the person who sells the vechile to take the load of ownership transfer to have a peace of mind.
 
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Buddies,

Having read an article here. It does raise a question as to who should be held liable in a road accident for paying / compensating the damages? Many of us might have unfortunately faced such a situation so would like to know your views on the same.

Regards
Akash
Hi Akash Ji - Nice Topic [thumbsup] I Apologize for asking a noob question here.

As per as I know and remember, It is mandatory to have Third Party Insurance for any Vehicle in India and this is supposed to cover all these claims.

Third Party Insurance covers any damage or injury caused by the insured, to another person or property. A Third Party Liability cover is made mandatory in India under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 [clap]

If the Car / Vehicle has Insurance, It has to be Insurance Company who has to pay this right, OR am I missing something here [confused]
 
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Hi Akash Ji - Nice Topic [thumbsup] I Apologize for asking a noob question here.

As per as I know and remember, It is mandatory to have Third Party Insurance for any Vehicle in India and this is supposed to cover all these claims.

Third Party Insurance covers any damage or injury caused by the insured, to another person or property. A Third Party Liability cover is made mandatory in India under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 [clap]

If the Car / Vehicle has Insurance, It has to be Insurance Company who has to pay this right, OR am I missing something here [confused]
The owner and the insurance company is one party normally. Sometimes insurance company also charges a case on the owner/driver for negligence. Do not know if this is such a case. Was it a hit and run case?

Anyway, below 7.5 lacs is supposed to be born by the insurance company as per the third party insurance (May be there is no insurance for the car itself?) , above that needs to be paid by the owner?
 
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Was it a hit and run case?

Anyway, below 7.5 lacs is supposed to be born by the insurance company as per the third party insurance (May be there is no insurance for the car itself?) , above that needs to be paid by the owner?
Hi Generalmax,

Yes you are correct on the 7.5 lakhs limit but this is for the Third party Property Damages and in case of death or bodily injuries court will decide and it has to be paid by the Insurance company.

Above mentioned information I have extracted from below link, you can refer the same for further details

https://www.bankbazaar.com/insurance/third-party-motor-insurance-policy.html

Here I would like to blame the news article, they have not mentioned anything clearly.
This is how our media is working these days !
My guess is this may be the case where Insurance has expired and is not renewed when accident occurred and also ownership not transferred after the purchase [frustration]

So I am not sure in these kind of situations how the law works [surprise] [rules]
 
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One solution which seems to be good for now is to make an affidavit. The affidavit will be notarized and can be presented in the court as the proof of sale in case something bad like this happens.

You can add the following points to the affidavit
1. That you have sold the car to xx person residing at xx place on xx date
2. That you have no liability in case the buyer is involved in the accident or doesn't transfer the ownership on his name from the date of sale.
3 That you have received xx amount of money from the buyer via Cash/Check(check number) for the sale of vehicle

The affidavit will contain signature of both the buyer and seller. 3rd point is not necessary but these are the few points I can remember right now.
Also make sure to add any specific identification number of the buyer on the affidavit like pan number, license number etc. In case anyone needs a scanned copy for the same do let me know.
 

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