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PETITIONER: STATE OF HARYANA

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: DARSHANA DEVI & ORS.

DATE OF JUDGMENT12/02/1979

BENCH: KRISHNAIYER, V.R. BENCH: KRISHNAIYER, V.R. REDDY, O. CHINNAPPA (J)

CITATION:  1979 AIR  855            1979 SCR  (3) 184  1979 SCC  (2) 236  CITATOR INFO :  R          1979 SC1862  (18)  R          1983 SC 624  (10)  RF         1991 SC1769  (6)

ACT:      Civil  Procedure   Code,  Or.  XXXIII,  application  to accident-claims cases, principles involved.

HEADNOTE:      The respondents,  a widow  and  her  daughter,  claimed compensation for  the killing of their sole bread-winner, by a Haryana  State Transport  bus, but could not afford to pay any court  fee on  their claim. The High Court held that the exemptive provisions  of Order  XXXIII, CPC,  will apply  to Accident Claims  Tribunals, which  have the trappings of the Civil Court.      Dismissing the special leave petition the Court, ^      HELD: The  State  should  frame  appropriate  rules  to exempt  from   levy  of   court  fee,  cases  of  claims  of compensation where  automobile accidents  are the cause. Two principles are  involved. Firstly,  access to  court, is  an integral part  of social  justice,  and  the  State  has  no rational litigation  policy if  it forgets this fundamental, and secondly,  it is  the State’s  duty under Art. 41 of the Constitution to  render assistance,  without litigation,  in cases of  disablement and  undeserved want. [185 B-C, D, 186 C]      M. Cappelletti,  Rabels Z,  (1976) 669  at 672;  quoted with approval.      Obiter dictum:      I. It  is  a  public  duty  of  each  great  branch  of Government to obey the rule of law and uphold the tryst with the Constitution  by making  rules to effectuate legislation meant to  help the  poor. Now  that insurance  against third party  risk   is   compulsory   and   motor   insurance   is nationalised, and  transport  itself  is  largely  by  State Undertakings, the  principle of  no-fault liability  and on- the-spot settlement of claims should become national policy. [186 B, C, D-E]      II. Courts  must give  the accident  claims cases  high priority, adopt  simplified  procedures  without  breach  of

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natural justice,  try out  pre-trial settlements  and narrow down the  controversy and  remember, that ’wiping every tear from every  eye’ has  judicial relevance. For, law must keep its promise to justice. [186 G-H]

JUDGMENT:      CIVIL APPELLATE  JURISDICTION: Special  Leave  Petition (Civil) No. 4120 of 1978.      From the  Judgment and Order dated 8-3-78 of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Civil Revision No. 801/76.      Prem Malhotra and M. N. Shroff for the Petitioner.      The Order of the Court was delivered by      KRISHNA IYER,  J.-We refuse  leave but  with a  message tag.      The poor  shall not be priced out of the justice market by  insistence   on  court-fee  and  refusal  to  apply  the exemptive provisions of 185 Order XXXIII,  C.P.C. So we are distressed that the State of Haryana, mindless  of the  mandate of  equal justice  to the indigent under the Magna Carta of our Republic, expressed in Article 14 and stressed in Art. 39A of the Constitution, has sought leave  to appeal  against the order of the High Court which has  rightly extended the ’pauper’ provisions to auto- accident claims.  The reasoning of the High Court in holding that Order  XXXIII will  apply to  tribunals which  have the trappings of  the civil  court finds our approval. We affirm the decision.      Even so  it is  fair for  the State  to make  clear the situation by  framing appropriate  rules to exempt from levy of  court   fee  cases   of  claims  of  compensation  where automobile accidents are the cause.      Here is  a  case  of  a  widow  and  daughter  claiming compensation for  the killing  of the sole bread-winner by a State Transport  bus; and the Haryana Government, instead of acting on  social justice and generously settling the claim, fights  like   a  cantankerous  litigant  even  by  avoiding adjudication through the device of asking for court-fee from the pathetic plaintiffs.      Two principles  are involved.  Access to  court  is  an aspect of  Social Justice  and the  State  has  no  rational litigation  policy  if  it  forgets  this  fundamental.  Our perspective is  best projected by Cappelletti, quoted by the Australian Law Reform Commission:           "The right  of effective  access  to  justice  has      emerged with  the new  social rights.  Indeed, it is of      paramount importance  among  these  new  rights  since,      clearly, the  enjoyment of  traditional as  well as new      social  rights   presupposes   mechanisms   for   their      effective protection.  Such  protection,  moreover,  is      best assured  by a workable remedy within the framework      of the judicial system. Effective access to justice can      thus be  seen as  the most  basic requirement-the  most      basic ’human  right’-of  a  system  which  purports  to      guarantee legal right."(1) We should  expand the  jurisprudence of Access to Justice as an  integral   part  of   Social  Justice  and  examine  the constitutionalism of  court-fee levy  as a  facet  of  human rights highlighted  in our  Nation’s  Constitution.  If  the State itself  should travesty  this basic  principle, in the teeth of  Articles 14  and 39A,  where an  indigent widow is involved, a  second look at its policy is overdue. The Court must give  the benefit  of doubt  against levy of a price to

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enter the temple of justice 186 until one  day the  whole issue  of the  validity of profit- making through  sale of  civil justice,  disguised as court- fee, is  fully reviewed  by this  Court. Before parting with this point  we must  express our  poignant feeling  that  no State, it seems, has, as yet, framed rules to give effect to the benignant  provision of  legal aid  to the poor in Order XXXIII Rule 9A, Civil Procedure Code, although several years have passed  since the  enactment. Parliament  is stultified and the  People are  frustrated. Even  after a  law has been enacted for  the benefit  of the  Poor, the  State does  not bring  into  force  by  wilful  default  in  fulfilling  the conditio sine  qua non.  It is  a public  duty of each great branch of  Government to obey the rule of law and uphold the tryst with  the Constitution  by making  rules to effectuate legislation meant to help the poor.      The second principle the State of Haryana has unhappily failed to  remember  is  its  duty  under  Art.  41  of  the Constitution   to    render   public   assistance,   without litigation, in  cases of disablement and undeserved want. It is a  notorious fact  that our  highways are graveyards on a tragic sale,  what with  narrow, neglected  roads, reckless, unchecked  drivers,   heavy  vehicular   traffic  and  State Transport buses often inflicting the maximum casualties. Now that insurance  against third  party risk  is compulsory and motor insurance  is nationalised  and  transport  itself  is largely by  State Undertakings,  the principle  of  no-fault liability and on-the-spot settlement of claims should become national policy.  The victims, as here, are mostly below the poverty line  and litigation  is compounded misery. Hit-and- run cases  are common  and the time is ripe for the court to examine whether  no-fault liability  is not  implicit in the Motor Vehicles  Act itself and for Parliament to make law in this behalf  to remove  all doubts. A long ago Report of the Central Law  Commission confined  to  hit-and-run  cases  of auto-accidents is gathering dust. The horrendous increase of highway casualties and the chronic neglect of rules of road- safety  constrains  us  to  recommend  to  the  Central  Law Commission and to Parliament to senitize this tragic area of tort law and overhaul it humanistically.      Another aspect must be noticed before we part with this petition. In  many States,  for want of judicial manpower or other pathological  causes, the  accident claims pend before tribunals in  heartless  slowness.  Courts  must  give  this bleeding class  of cases  high  priority,  adopt  simplified procedures without  breach of  natural justice, try out pre- trial  settlements  and  narrow  down  the  controversy  and remember, that  ’wiping  every  tear  from  every  eye’  has judicial relevance.  For,  law  must  keep  its  promise  to Justice. 187      While we  dismiss the  petition for  leave, we hope the Haryana State  will hasten  to frame  rules under  the Motor Vehicles Act to enable claimants for compensation to be free from payment of court-fee. M.R.                                     Petition dismissed. 188