Motor Accident Claim Tribunals (MACTs) cannot dismiss any claim petition on the ground of having been barred by the limitation period of six months from the date of the accident since they are statutorily mandated to treat the First Information Report (FIR) registered by the police itself as an application for compensation, the Madras High Court has ruled.
Justice V. Lakshminarayanan stated the police were bound to forward every FIR or First Accident Report (FAR) registered in connection with motor accidents to the jurisdictional MACT, and the latter were required to treat such reports as claim petitions and grant appropriate relief to the victims without waiting for the filing of a formal claim petition.
The judge also agreed with amicus curiae N. Vijayaraghavan that the claim petitions, if any, filed by the victims could only be treated as a reminder for the MACTs to take forward the proceedings that should have been initiated immediately on receipt of the FIR or FAR and marshalled further after the filing of the interim accident report and detailed accident report.
