Insurers told to email accident tribunals within 48 hrs of depositing compensation

CHENNAI: After the misappropriation of Rs 1.50 crore compensation under Motor Claims Original Petition (MCOP) by a court staff came to light, the Madras High Court on Tuesday directed insurance companies and transport corporations to send e-mails to the respective Motor Accident Claims Tribunals within 48 hours of the deposit of award amounts along with the unique transaction reference (UTR) and MCOP numbers.

A division bench comprising Justice PN Prakash and Justice Abdul Quddhose, which had passed a slew of directions on June 18 by appointing nodal officers to inspect the records of MCOP tribunals and set them straight, issued the direction based on suggestion by the amicus, advocate N Vijayaraghavan. Recording the amicus’s submission that he has shared the e-mail IDs of all the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunals with insurance companies and transport corporations, the bench accepted the suggestion.

The bench also directed District Nodal Officers (district judges) to commence inspection along with Assistant Nodal Officers after partaking in the training programme to be conducted by the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Academy (TNSJA). The bench added that the District Nodal Officers and Assistant Nodal Officers should have access to all the court records in their districts.

Posting the plea for further hearing to July 23, the bench directed all District Nodal Officers and TNSJA Director to be present via video conferencing on that day. The embezzlement had revealed that the actual number of fixed deposit receipts pending in the courts failed to reflect in the ledgers. In hundreds of cases, the transport corporations and insurance companies had deposited the compensation without mentioning the MCOP case numbers to which the amount should be credited or to a different head, resulting in claimants not receiving the compensation. In several hundreds of cases disposed of decades ago, lakhs of rupees were lying in the Civil Court Deposit (CCD) without being invested in fixed deposits, thereby depriving the claimants of legitimate interest component.