Insurer Cannot Force NHAI Into Motor Accident Claim, HP High Court Rules
The Himachal Pradesh High Court held that a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal can award compensation only against an insurer, owner, or driver of the vehicle, and that an insurance company cannot override the claimant's choice of parties to drag NHAI or a road contractor into the proceedings.
The High Court of Himachal Pradesh, Shimla, has dismissed two petitions filed by United India Insurance Co. Ltd. challenging the refusal of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Kullu, to implead the National Highway Authority of India and the Director of KMC Construction Ltd. as additional respondents in a pair of compensation claims. Justice Romesh Verma, sitting singly, decided the petitions on 19 June 2026, holding that the MACT's award power under Section 168 of the Motor Vehicles Act extends only to the insurer, owner, or driver of the vehicle involved in the accident — not to road maintenance authorities or contractors. The judgment settles the scope of the insurer's right to compel the joinder of third parties in tribunal proceedings, and confirms that the claimant, as dominus litis, retains full control over the choice of respondents.
The Accident and the Compensation Claims
On 11 August 2023, at approximately 7:45 PM, minor Maisha Aggarwal was travelling with her mother Smt. Dhanwanti and brother Chinmay Aggarwal from Kullu to Sunder Nagar in a vehicle bearing registration number HP-31B-1985. When the vehicle reached 6 Mile near Pandoh, District Mandi, heavy rain had loosened large boulders and rocks from the hillside. The driver, respondent No. 2, was aware that stones were falling but reportedly attempted to cross the sliding portion of the National Highway. A large boulder struck the vehicle. Maisha Aggarwal sustained minor injuries; Smt. Dhanwanti and Chinmay Aggarwal suffered multiple grievous injuries.
Smt. Dhanwanti was taken to PGI Chandigarh but died the following day, on 12 August 2023, at Fortis Hospital, Chandigarh. Chinmay Aggarwal was declared dead on arrival.
Maisha Aggarwal, being a minor, filed two separate claim petitions before the MACT, Kullu, through her grandfather. Claim Petition No. 66 of 2024 sought compensation of Rs. 25,00,000 on account of her mother's death. Claim Petition No. 67 of 2024 sought a further Rs. 25,00,000 on account of her brother's death. Both petitions named Prashant Aggarwal, the owner-cum-driver of the vehicle, and United India Insurance Co. Ltd. as respondents.
The Insurer's Impleadment Applications
United India Insurance Co. Ltd. resisted both claims on the merits, raising preliminary objections regarding maintainability and cause of action. In its reply before the MACT, the insurance company averred that construction and road-cutting work was being carried out on the highway without adherence to the Standard Operating Procedures and guidelines issued by the Ministry of Highways. It pointed out that the NHAI and its contractor, KMC Construction Ltd., had been named in the initial FIR, indicating their alleged negligence in not constructing adequate breast walls or retaining walls at the accident site.
On the basis of these averments, the insurance company filed applications under Order 1 Rule 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure read with Section 151 of CPC in both claim petitions, seeking impleadment of two proposed parties: the Project Director, NHAI Project Implementation Unit, Bagla, District Mandi, and the Director of KMC Construction Ltd., Hyderabad.
The claimant opposed the applications, arguing that as dominus litis she was entitled to choose whom to sue. The MACT-II, Kullu, dismissed both applications on 26 September 2025. The insurance company then filed CMPMO No. 695 of 2025 and CMPMO No. 35 of 2026 before the High Court under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, seeking to set aside those dismissal orders.
The Legal Issue: Who Can Be Bound by a MACT Award?
The central question before Justice Romesh Verma was whether NHAI and KMC Construction Ltd. were either necessary or proper parties to motor accident compensation proceedings, such that the insurance company could compel their joinder despite the claimant's objection.
Senior Advocate Mr. Ashwani Sharma, appearing for the insurance company, argued that both proposed respondents were necessary parties and that no effective order could be passed in their absence, given their alleged role in the accident.
Mr. Vishwas Kaushal, Advocate for the claimant, contested this on two distinct grounds. First, as dominus litis, the claimant could not be compelled to litigate against parties of the insurance company's choosing. Second, and more fundamentally, he pointed the court to Section 168 of the Motor Vehicles Act, which defines the categories of persons against whom a MACT can make an award.
How the Court Reasoned
Justice Romesh Verma began with the text of Section 168 of the Motor Vehicles Act. The provision empowers the Claims Tribunal to pass an award “specifying the person or persons to whom compensation shall be paid” and directs the Tribunal to specify the amount to be paid by “the insurer or owner or driver of the vehicle involved in the accident or by all or any of them.”
The court read this language as exhaustive. A MACT is a statutory authority created under the Motor Vehicles Act. Its jurisdiction to award compensation runs only against those persons whom the statute identifies: the insurer, the owner, or the driver. An authority responsible for laying or maintaining a road — such as NHAI — or a road contractor — such as KMC Construction Ltd. — falls entirely outside that category. The Tribunal, the court held, has no authority to entertain a tortious claim against any person not named within Section 168. Accordingly, no award could be passed against NHAI or KMC Construction Ltd. regardless of how the impleadment application was framed.
The court then turned to the two-part test for necessary parties under Order 1 Rule 10 CPC, as restated by the Supreme Court in Gurmit Singh Bhatia v. Kiran Kant Robinson and others, (2020) 13 SCC 773. For a party to qualify as a necessary party: first, there must be a right to some relief against that party in respect of the controversy in question; and second, no effective decree can be passed in that party's absence. The court found that the insurance company had failed to satisfy either limb. Since Section 168 precludes an award against road authorities, the insurance company had no right to any relief against NHAI or KMC Construction Ltd. within the tribunal proceedings. And since the MACT could pass a complete and effective award against the insurer, owner, and driver without those parties being present, the second limb was equally unsatisfied.
The court also relied on the Supreme Court's articulation in Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd. v. Regency Convention Centre & Hotels Pvt. Ltd. & Ors., (2010) 7 SCC 416, which confirmed that the plaintiff as dominus litis may choose persons against whom to litigate and cannot be compelled to sue a person against whom no relief is sought. A necessary party is one whose absence would render the court unable to pass any effective decree; a proper party is one whose presence would assist complete adjudication. If a party is neither, the court has no jurisdiction to implead that party against the plaintiff's wishes. Justice Romesh Verma found that NHAI and KMC Construction Ltd. were neither necessary nor proper parties within those definitions.
On the Article 227 question, the court noted that the High Court's supervisory jurisdiction does not permit it to act as a court of first appeal or to reappreciate evidence and facts. Citing the Supreme Court's ruling in Garment Craft v. Prakash Chand Goel, (2022) 4 SCC 181, and its earlier decision in Sugarbai M. Siddiq and others v. Ramesh S. Hankare (dead) by LRs, 2001(8) SCC 477, Justice Romesh Verma observed that interference under Article 227 is warranted only where the subordinate court has assumed or failed to exercise jurisdiction, or has so flagrantly violated fundamental principles of law or justice that a grave injustice would remain uncorrected. The court found no such infirmity or perversity in the MACT's order. The MACT had correctly identified the legal position and correctly applied it.
The court also emphasised the risk to the claimant that the insurance company's approach would create: if the MACT were to find the claim bad for non-joinder of necessary parties, the claimant — not the insurer — would bear the adverse consequence. Permitting the insurance company to force that risk upon the claimant by compulsorily introducing parties against her wishes would invert the dominus litis principle entirely.
Outcome
Justice Romesh Verma dismissed CMPMO No. 695 of 2025 and CMPMO No. 35 of 2026, along with any pending applications, leaving the parties to bear their own costs. The impugned order of the MACT-II, Kullu, dated 26 September 2025, rejecting the impleadment applications in Claim Petition No. 66 of 2024 and Claim Petition No. 67 of 2024, was upheld. The court clarified that no observation made in the judgment is to be treated as an expression of opinion on the merits of the main compensation claims, which are to be decided by the MACT uninfluenced by anything said in the petitions.