JAM SHRI SATJI DIGVIJAYASINGJI Vs. DAUD TAIYAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) * * * *

(2.) So far as the other two deceased persons Sidi Musa and Noormohmad were concerned they were persons who were merely given lift. They are not shown to be persons carried on the truck G.T.Z. 1959 for hire or reward or by reason of or under any contract of employment. The evidence of Pravinchandra is very categorical that they were merely given lift. So far as Noormohmad was concerned it was an act of mere social kindness out of sympathy for him and for his ailing buffalo calf. For Sidi Musa also it was a mere lift given in presence of the owner Pravinchandra by the cleaner Abbas and so of course with the consent of Pravinchandra.

(3.) The question about insurance coverage of such passenger risk is now finally settled by the aforesaid decision of Their Lordships in Pushpabai v. Ranjit Ginning and Pressing Co. Pvt. Ltd. A.I.R. 1977 S.C. 1735. At page 1745 Their Lordships first pointed out that sec. 95 of the Motor Vehicles Act 1939 as amended by Act 56 of 1969 was based on the corresponding English Acts the Road Traffic Acts of 1930 and 1960 neither of which required users of motor vehicles to be insured in respect of liability for death or bodily injury to passengers in the vehicle being used except a vehicle in which passengers were carried for hire or reward or by reason of or in pursuance of a contract of employment. In fact sec. 203 of the 1960 Act provided that the policy shall not be required to cover liability in respect of death of or bodily injury to persons being carried in or upon or entering or getting on to or alighting from the vehicle at the time of the occurrence of the event out of which the claims arise. Their Lordships in terms pointed out that the provisions of the English Acts being explicit the risk to passengers is not covered by the insurance policy and it was these provisions in the English Road Traffic Act 1960 which were introduced by the 1969 amendment of sec. 95 of the Indian Motor Vehicles Act. The law as regards general exclusion of passengers was reproduced from Halsburys Laws of England Third Edition Vol. 22 at page 368 para 755 as under: