Srinagar: The High Court has set aside a 2019 award of compensation by Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal (MAT) against a person without sending him a notice and denying him the opportunity of being heard.
Allowing an appeal filed by one Ghulam Nabi Turrey, Justice Wasim Sadiq Nargal, remanded back to the Tribunal the matter for rehearing and deciding it in accordance with law within three months.
“From bare perusal of the award, the finding has been recorded that a notice was although issued to the appellant (Turrey) but the appellant despite service did not appear and this was precisely the reason that the appellant was proceeded ex-parte,” the court said.
It added, “the finding of the Tribunal is without any basis as there is no whisper in the award with regard to factum of service of the notice on the appellant nor there is any mention of the date when the notice was served to the appellant.”
The court said that there is no mention in the award with regard to recording of the statement of the Process Server by the MAT nor had the Process Server sworn an affidavit stating whether he had ever served the notice as required under law.
“The stand taken by the appellant (Turrey) that he had never received any notice from the Tribunal cannot be faulted. Thus, I hold that the award dated 27th April 2019 has been passed in ex-parte and without any service of notice to the appellant by providing him an opportunity of being heard”, the court observed.
On this very ground the court set aside the award by the MAT.
The court said that concept and doctrine of Principles of Natural Justice and its application in Justice delivery system is not new. “It seems to be as old as the system of dispensation of justice itself. It has by now assumed the importance of being, so to say, ‘an essential inbuilt component’ of the mechanism, through which decision making process passes, in the matters touching the rights and liberty of the people,” the court said.
It held that it is no doubt a procedural requirement but it ensures a strong safeguard against any Judicial or administrative; order or action, adversely affecting the substantive rights of the individuals.
