Shyam Sunder v State of Rajasthan

• The deceased, a store keeper in the PWD, was sent from Bhilwara to Banswara for famine relief work in a department truck in May 1952.
• Throughout the journey the radiator kept overheating and the driver poured water into it every few miles.
• Four miles out of Pratapgarh the engine caught fire. On the driver's warning the occupants jumped out, and the deceased struck a stone and died.
• The trial court decreed damages, finding the driver negligent in putting an unroadworthy truck on the road. The High Court reversed, holding res ipsa loquitur inapplicable.

1. Whether negligence could be inferred under res ipsa loquitur, and whether the State could plead sovereign immunity.

• The maxim res ipsa loquitur applied. A truck with a history of overheating catching fire on the road called for an explanation from the State, and negligence in putting an unroadworthy truck on the road could be inferred.
• The State was vicariously liable for the negligence of its driver in the course of employment.
• Famine relief work is not a sovereign function, so the plea of sovereign immunity failed.
• The appeal was allowed, the High Court's decree set aside and the trial decree restored.

Where an accident is of a kind that does not ordinarily happen without negligence and the thing was under the defendant's control, negligence may be inferred unless the defendant explains it. The State is liable for negligence of its servants in non-sovereign functions such as famine relief.