Aapka Consultant Judgment Series- In this series, we are providing case analysis of Landmark Judgments of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.
The State of Rajasthan Vs. Mst. Vidhyawati and Anr.
AIR 1962 SC 933, [1962] Supp2 SCR 989
Hon’ble Judges/Coram: B.P. Sinha, C.J., J.C. Shah, J.L. Kapur, J.R. Mudholkar and M. Hidayatullah, JJ.
Date of Decision: 02.02.1962
FACTS: –
A driver was employed as a temporary employee by the Rajasthan State. He was posted under the Collector of commercial agricultural leases of Udaipur. The car had been sent to a workshop for necessary repairs. After repairs had been carried out, the driver, while driving the car back along a public road knocked down one person who was walking on the footpath by the said of the public road in Udaipur city, causing him multiple injuries, including fractures of the skull and backbone, resulting in his death three days later, in the hospital where he had been removed for treatment. The plaintiff filed a case for compensation against the State. State, in turn, opposed the suit on the ground that it is not liable for the negligence of its employee.
ISSUE: –
What is the extent of liability of the State for the tortious acts of its employee in the course of employment?
JUDGMENT: –
To determine the above mentioned issue, there is need to give effect the true construction of Art. 300(1) of the Constitution which deals with suit filed against or by the State. This Article consists of three parts, namely, (1) the first part provides for the form and the cause-title in a suit and says that a State (omitting any reference to the Government of India) may sue or be sued by the name of the State, and (2) that a State may sue or be sued in relation to its affairs in like cases as the corresponding Provinces or the corresponding Indian State might have sued or been sued if this Constitution had not been enacted; and (3) that the second part is subject to any provisions which may be made by an Act of the Legislature of the State concerned, in due exercise of its legislative functions, in pursuance of powers conferred by the Constitution. First part of Article 300 deals only with the nomenclature of the parties to a suit or proceedings but the second part defines the extent of liability by the use of the words “in the like cases” and refers back for the determination of such cases to the legal position before the enactment of the Constitution. That legal position is indicated in the Government of India Act, 1935, section 176(1). It will be noticed that the provisions of Art. 300(1) and s. 176(1) are mutatis mutandis substantially the same. Section 176(1) refers back to the legal position as it obtained before the enactment of that Act, that is to say, as it emerged on the enactment of s. 32 of the Government of India Act, 1915 (5 & 6, Geo. V c. 61) Sub-ss. (1) and (2). As compared to the terms of Article 300, it will be noticed that part (1) of that Article corresponds to sub-s. (1) Of s. 32 , part (2) roughly, though not exactly, corresponds to sub-s. (2), and part (3) of the Article, does not find a place in s. 32. Sub-section (2) of s. 32 has specific reference to “remedies”, and has provided that the remedies against the Secretary of State in Council shall be the same as against the East Indian Company, if the Government of India Act of 1858, and the Government of India Act, 1915, had not been passed. Thus, by the chain of enactments, beginning with the Act of 1858 and ending with the Constitution the word “shall and may have and take the same suits, remedies and proceedings” in s. 65 above, by incorporation, apply the Government of a State to the same extent, as they applied to the East India Company.
The question naturally arises: What was the extent of liability of the East India Company for the tortious acts of its servants committed in course of their employment as such? The exact question arose in a case in Calcutta, before the Supreme Court of Calcutta, in the case of The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company v. The Secretary of State for India, 1881. Court observed that the State cannot be liable for the tortious acts of its servants, when such servants are engaged on an activity connected with the affairs of the State. In this connection it has to be remembered that under the Constitution India has established a welfare state, whose functions are not confined only to maintaining law and order, but extend to engaging in all activities including industry, public transport, state trading, to name only a few of them. In so far as the State activities have such wide ramifications involving not only the use of sovereign powers but also its powers as employer in so many public sectors, it is too much to claim that the State should be immune from the consequences of tortious acts of its employees committed in the course of their employment as such. In its respect, the present set up of the Government is analogous to the position of the East India Company, which functioned not only as a Government with sovereign powers, as a delegate of the British Government, but also carried on trade and commerce, as also public transport like railways, posts and telegraphs and road transport business.
It is clear that the Dominion of India, or any constituent Province of the Dominion, would have been liable in view of the provisions aforesaid of the Government of India Act, 1858. It was impossible, by reason of the maxim “The King can do no wrong”, to sue the Crown for the tortious act of its servant. But it was realised in the United Kingdom that that rule had become outmoded in the context of modern development is statecraft, and Parliament intervened by enacting the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947, which came into force on January 1, 1948. Hence the very citadel of the absolute rule of immunity of the sovereign has now been blown up. Section 2(1) of the Act provides that the Crown shall be subject to all those liabilities, in tort, to which it would be subject if it were a private person of full age and capacity, in respect of torts committed by its servants or agents, subject to the other provisions of the Act. The law applicable to India in respect of torts committed by a servant of the Government was very much in advance of the Common law, before the enactment of the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947, which has revolutionized the law in the United Kingdom, also.
Viewing the case from the point of view of first principles, there should be no difficulty in holding that the State should be as much liable for tort in respect of a tortious act committed by its servant within the scope of his employment and functioning as such as any other employer. Now that we have, by our Constitution, established a Republican form of Government, and one of the objective is to established a Socialistic State with its varied industrial and other activities, employing a large army of servants, there is no justification, in principle, or in public interest, that the State should not be held liable victoriously for the tortious act of its servant. When the rule of immunity in favour of the Crown based on common Law in the United Kingdom has disappeared from the land of its birth, there is no legal warrant for holding that it has any validity in this country, particularly after the Constitution. As the cause of action in this case arose after the coming into effect of the Constitution, it would be only recognising the old established rule, going back to more than 100 years atleast, if we upheld the vicarious liability of the State. Art. 300 of the Constitution itself have saved the right of Parliament or the Legislature of a State to enact such law as it may think fit and proper in this behalf. But so long as the Legislature has not expressed its intention to the contrary, it must be held that the law is what it has been ever since the days of the East India Company.
HELD: –
Rajasthan Government is liable for the acts of its servant done in the course of employment, as these acts and functions are similar to that of any other employer.
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