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16. This witness has denied the previous statement recorded by the police. ASI Roop Lal (PW8) specifically stated that he had recorded the statement of witnesses as per their version. This was not suggested to be incorrect. Therefore, Surinder Kumar (PW1) is shown to have made two inconsistent statements -- one before the police that the accident occurred due to the overtaking of the car by the accused, and another before the Court that the accused was not overtaking the vehicle.

rt In fact, the truck driver should not have overtaken the car when he had noticed a truck coming from the opposite direction. It is also not the case of the truck driver that the car driver did not apply the brakes or did not slow the vehicle. Rather, it is the case of the truck driver that the speed of the car was slow. A Division Bench of the Mysore High Court in K.N. Nithyananda v. Mysore State Agro Industries Corporation, by its Managing Director Bangalore and another, AIR 1973 Mysore 314, in context with Regulation 4 (now Regulation 6), has held that the drivers of automatically propelled vehicles, when attempting to overtake vehicles going ahead of them should wait for the proper opportunity viz., slackness in traffic on the same road before doing so. They are duty-bound to exercise sufficient care and caution by looking ahead and behind in order to ascertain that it would be safe for them to overtake such a vehicle. A further duty is cast on them to give a proper signal to the driver of the vehicle ahead in order to indicate that they would be overtaking the vehicle and wait for a reply signal from the driver permitting them to overtake and thereby indicating that the road is clear and there would be no danger in overtaking. The evidence of RW-1, Amrik Singh, a truck driver, makes it abundantly clear that he did not at all exercise any caution while overtaking the Maruti car or 2026:HHC:3751 while stopping his vehicle all of a sudden. In these circumstances, I have no hesitation in holding that Amrik Singh, a truck driver, was not only rash in the manner of driving the truck while overtaking the Maruti car but was .
rt "13. It goes without saying that the drivers of automatically propelled vehicles, when attempting to overtake vehicles going ahead of them, ought to wait for the proper opportunity. A duty is cast on them to exercise sufficient care and caution by looking ahead and behind in order to ascertain that it would be safe for them to overtake the vehicle moving ahead of them. A further duty is cast on them to give a proper signal to the driver of the vehicle ahead in order to indicate that they would be overtaking the vehicles and wait for a reply signal from that driver permitting them to overtake and thereby indicating that the road ahead is clear and there would be no danger in overtaking. If these minimum precautions are not observed by drivers of automatically propelled vehicles, while overtaking the vehicles going ahead of them, it will have to be considered that such driving is rash and negligent."
20. In the case in hand, the accused, while overtaking the truck, was required to take the minimum precaution to have awaited for proper opportunity to overtake the truck and taking necessary caution to see whether any vehicle was not coming from the opposite side and to give a proper signal to the driver of the truck and wait for a reply 2026:HHC:3751 signal from the driver of the truck. This has not been done by the accused and, therefore, he was negligent in driving the Jeep."