HC tells tribunal to consider hurt cyclist’s plea for compensation

MUMBAI: Thirty-one years after a Mumbai Port Trust employee met with an accident while participating in a Mumbai-Bengaluru bicycle trip to raise social awareness, Bombay high court directed the accidents claims tribunal to consider her plea for compensation.
The tribunal had rejected her plea as she had approached it after the 12-month deadline for filing her claims.Jyoti Shetye, a resident of Dombivli, claimed she had suffered 15% disability due to the accident and therefore could not approach the tribunal in time.
Changes were made to Motor Vehicles Act, to drop a clause prescribing a time limit to file claims for compensation, in 1989. But in 1996, the tribunal rejected her plea to condone the delay as the accident occurred before the new law and therefore did not apply to her. Shetye, through her lawyer, Anjali Helekar, challenged the order which came up for hearing recently in the high court.
Justice Nitin Jamdar said the tribunal had erred. “It seems to have approached the aspect of condonation of delay in a rather hyper-technical manner,” said the judge, pointing out that Shetye was based in Mumbai and was under treatment for a considerable time as she had suffered grievous injuries. “An application for condonation of delay should receive liberal construction. Ordinarily, a court leans in favour of condonation of delay so as to advance the cause of substantial justice. It is more so, when the claim petition is under a beneficial piece of legislation. The tribunal ought to have condoned the delay,” added the judge.
Shetye was participating in a rally when a tractor rammed into her bicycle in Kolhapur on March 1, 1988. She was treated in Kolhapur, before being shifted to MbPT hospital. She was under treatment there for over a month. She approached the Kolhapur accidents claims tribunal in May 1989, urging it to condone the delay but it dismissed her plea.