The claimant chose Chennai because that is where the insurance company had an office. But he lived in Chittoor, the accident happened in Tirupati, and the driver too lived in Chittoor. The Supreme Court held that the Motor Vehicles Act, unlike the ordinary civil law, does not let a claim be filed simply where the defendant carries on business, and that an insurer’s office therefore cannot anchor jurisdiction. The claim goes to Chittoor. The Court also mapped out exactly when a jurisdiction objection can be raised.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has held that the presence of an insurer’s office at a particular place does not, by itself, confer territorial jurisdiction on the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal there to entertain a compensation claim, and that the jurisdiction of a Tribunal under Section 166(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 is governed strictly by the options that provision lists [K. Rashik v. National Insurance Company Ltd. and Another].
A Bench of Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar, in a judgment authored by Justice Chandurkar, dismissed the claimant’s appeal and upheld the transfer of his claim from the Tribunal at Chennai to the Tribunal at Chittoor.
The background
The claimant was riding his two-wheeler, with his brother as pillion, in October 2022 when a mini truck struck it in Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. He filed his claim for compensation under Section 166 of the Motor Vehicles Act before the Claims Tribunal at Chennai. The insurer, impleaded by the claimant as a party, objected that the Chennai Tribunal had no territorial jurisdiction, since no part of the cause of action had arisen there.
The Tribunal rejected the objection, holding that because the insurer also carried on business at Chennai, it had jurisdiction. On the insurer’s revision petition, a single judge of the Madras High Court reversed that view, holding that as the accident had occurred at Chittoor, the Tribunal there had jurisdiction, and transferred the proceedings to Chittoor. The claimant appealed to the Supreme Court.
The insurer’s right to object
The Court first dealt with the claimant’s argument that the insurer had no business raising a jurisdiction objection at all, since it had an office at Chennai and suffered no prejudice. That argument was rejected. Relying on the three-judge Bench decision in United India Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Shila Datta, the Court held that while a claimant is not required to implead the insurer as a defendant, once the claimant chooses to do so, the insurer becomes free to contest the claim on all permissible grounds, not merely the limited statutory grounds available to it as a mere noticee. Having been impleaded as a defendant by the claimant himself, the insurer was entitled to object to the Tribunal’s territorial jurisdiction.
The crucial difference from a civil suit
At the heart of the judgment is a careful reading of the words of Section 166(2), which gives a claimant the option to file at the Tribunal where the accident occurred, where the claimant resides or carries on business, or where the defendant resides.
The Court drew attention to a deliberate difference in the language. For a claimant, the provision allows filing where he “resides or carries on business”; but for a defendant, it allows filing only where the defendant “resides”, the words “carries on business” being conspicuously absent. That omission, the Court held, is significant and reflects a clear legislative intent: unlike Section 20 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which allows a suit where the defendant carries on business, Section 166(2) does not confer jurisdiction on a Tribunal merely because a defendant does business there.
The Court went further, holding that the word “defendant” in Section 166(2) does not even refer to the insurer, since impleading the insurer is optional, and the principal contesting defendant in a claim is ordinarily the owner or driver of the offending vehicle. An insurer receives notice of the claim in any event under Section 168(1), whether or not it is impleaded, which is one reason the “carries on business” limb was not extended to it. It followed that the insurer’s office at Chennai could not clothe the Chennai Tribunal with jurisdiction.
When a jurisdiction objection can be raised
The Court then clarified a point of considerable practical importance: the stage at which a territorial-jurisdiction objection is raised changes the test to be applied.
Where the objection is taken at the initial stage, before the Tribunal, as it was here, the requirements of Section 166(2) govern, and the claim must satisfy one of the jurisdictional options that provision lists. But where the objection is taken only later, at the appellate stage after an award has been passed, a different and higher threshold applies: under Section 21(1) of the CPC, the objector must show not only that it raised the objection at the earliest opportunity but also that the exercise of jurisdiction by a Tribunal lacking territorial competence has resulted in a failure of justice.
Reviewing its earlier decisions in Mantoo Sarkar, Malati Sardar and Balveer Batra, the Court explained that in each of those cases the objection had come at the appellate stage, so the “failure of justice” test under Section 21 applied, and awards were often restored where no prejudice was shown despite a jurisdictional defect. The present case was different: the objection was taken at the threshold, before any adjudication on merits, so Section 166(2) applied directly and Section 21 was not attracted.
The outcome
On the facts, the claimant resided in Chittoor as pleaded in the claim, the accident occurred in Tirupati, there was no averment that he carried on business at Chennai, and even the driver of the offending vehicle resided in Chittoor. No part of the cause of action, therefore, had arisen within Chennai’s limits.
The Court accepted that the Motor Vehicles Act is a beneficial statute meant to redress the hardship flowing from accidents, and must be read with that object in mind, but held that a purposive interpretation cannot be stretched beyond the plain language of the provision:
“…an interpretation which does not flow from the plain reading of the statutory provisions despite a purposive interpretation cannot be commended. An interpretation that does not find any statutory support cannot be accepted and an interpretation that is in tune with the plain language of the statute ought to be preferred.”
The appeal was accordingly dismissed, and the claim directed to be tried expeditiously by the Tribunal at Chittoor.
Why it matters
The ruling settles a question that recurs constantly in accident litigation, where claimants, often advised to file wherever an insurer has a branch, assume that an insurer’s ubiquitous presence gives them a free choice of forum. The Court has held that it does not. The jurisdictional options in a motor-accident claim are those the statute lists, tied to the accident, the claimant’s residence or business, or the defendant’s residence, and the deliberate omission of the defendant’s place of business means an insurer’s office cannot be used to anchor a claim in a distant and convenient city.
That said, the judgment is not unkind to claimants; it simply insists on the statutory scheme. A claimant retains genuinely wide options, including his own residence and place of business, and the Court’s careful treatment of the timing point actually protects claimants in a common situation: where an insurer sleeps on a jurisdiction objection and raises it only after losing on merits, the higher Section 21 “failure of justice” threshold applies, and awards will not be lightly disturbed for a technical defect that caused no prejudice. The distinction the Court draws, strict compliance at the threshold, prejudice-based scrutiny after an award, gives Tribunals and litigants a clear rule for a question that had produced seemingly divergent outcomes.
The wider principle, that a party’s mere presence or place of business at a location does not by itself confer jurisdiction where the statute does not say so, is one the courts have applied across fields, and this judgment is a clear application of it to motor-accident claims.
Case Title: K. Rashik v. National Insurance Company Ltd. and Another [Civil Appeal No. 10706 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar, Supreme Court of India
Date of Judgment: September 16, 2026 | Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 996
Order Under Challenge: Order of the Madras High Court dated March 16, 2026 transferring the claim to the Tribunal at Chittoor
Status: Appeal dismissed. Claim to be tried by the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal at Chittoor.