Legal Reference Library

Government is liable to compensate for death or injury occurring to a vehicle owner during an accident as road tax is levied by them and as coverage is not available to the owner in the insurance provided as per law, says the Kerala High Court. Government can either pay such compensation or assign the burden to insurance companies through appropriate change in legislation, the court said. A division bench comprising justices CT Ravikumar and KP Jyothindranath asked the government to give due attention to the matter after considering an appeal (MACA No. 2102/2013) filed by the wife, children, and mother of Biju of Kottaram Nagar in Kollam who died in a motorcycle accident at around 5.30pm on March 21, 2010. Biju was riding pillion on the motorcycle owned by him and one Gireesh Kumar was riding the bike when it capsized. Biju had obtained a full insurance from National Insurance Co. Ltd but the company declined to grant compensation stating they are liable to pay only a third party and...

The Government, being the largest litigant, has to be a model and ideal litigant, a division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising of Justices S.C. Dharmadhikari and Dr. Shalini Phansalkar Joshi has observed while refusing to condone the delay by the Government in preferring Appeals.  The Bench also observed that merely because applicant is a State, delay in filing appeals cannot be condoned without a proper explanation as Section 5 of the Limitation Act is equally applicable to the State as well. The reasons of delay stated in notice of motion, filed by Government read “”the delay is due to various factum, especially, related to procedural mandate in Government functioning, which were not in the control of the Applicant-Appellant“. In another notice of motion filed, the delay was attributed to “the various internal correspondence of the Revenue Department with its superior authorities, for seeking permission to file the Appeal” Observing that there is no ‘sufficient cause’ sta...

it will be useful to notice some rules of interpretation of statutes, one of which is the rule of contextual interpretation. This rule requires that the court should examine every word of a statute in its context. In doing so, the Court has to keep in view preamble of the statute, other provisions thereof, pari materia statutes, if any, and the mischief intended to be remedied. Context often provides the key to the meaning of the word and the sense it carries. Its setting gives colour to it and provides a cue to the intention of the legislature in using it. 1) A.P. State Financial Corporation v. Official Liquidator [(2000) 7 SCC 291] 2) Allahabad Bank v. Canara Bank and another [(2000) 4 SCC 406] 3) Thane Janata Sahakari Bank Ltd. vs. The Commissioner of Sales Tax & others, C.A. No.2811/2006 4) State of West Bengal v. Kesoram Industries Ltd. and others [(2004) 10 SCC 201] 5) Govt. of A.P. and anr. v. J.B. Educational Society and anr. [(2005) 3 SCC 212] 6) Zave...