Daijiworld Media Network – Bengaluru (MS)
Bengaluru, Jul 4: The high court has dismissed an appeal by a man seeking higher compensation in an accident case, as the petitioner was found to have made false claims about his injuries. The court also imposed a fine of Rs one lac on the petitioner.
"We are pained by the kind of cases that have considerably increased in recent times in which false evidence, fraud and forgery of documents are submitted to court. Dismissing the papers and documents of people who file dishonest cases is not enough. Something more stringent needs to be done so that the message is clearly heard by that category of people," opined two member bench of justice Krishna S Dikshith and Pradeep Singh Yerur.
The court expressed its opinion while quashing a petition filed by a person seeking higher compensation than the one ordered by a motor vehicle accident compensation tribunal.
The petitioner, who has heart ailment, had met with accident in August 2014. He was given medical treatment in government medical college. In the medical certificate it was mentioned that the injuries sustained by him were minor in nature. Later the petitioner underwent heart surgery at Narayana Hrudayalaya in the city.
When the petitioner applied for compensation, he mentioned that he had received severe injuries on his chest, head, forehead, nose, face, stomach, hand and legs. He filed an affidavit claiming that he had sustained these injuries in the accident. The motor vehicle accident compensation tribunal then ordered compensation. However, he approached the high court demanding a higher amount. However, the high court opined that there was no evidence for the argument put forth by the plaintiff.
The bench observed that the plaintiff had not mentioned in the application for compensation or in the affidavit that he had heart ailment before the accident. The court pointed out that the petitioner did not sustain any injuries on his chest or heart, as, if that was the case, the same would have been mentioned in the certificate given by the doctor. In addition, he failed to mention the substantial amount of compensation he had received from Yashashwini ooperative health protection scheme for farmers’ welfare of the state government.
The court which expressed disappointment at the plaintiff for wasting the time and effort of judges said that it will take stern action and fined him Rs one lac.
The court said, "We kept aside cases which are older than this and turned every page of the 656 pages of verdict given by the preliminary court, which took us an hour. We feel this was just a waste of time and effort. Precious time of the court is being wasted because of such cases. This is not right. We have arrived at a conclusion to quash the case along with imposing a fine of Rs one lac."