NATIONAL INSURANCE CO LTD Vs. MEMBERS MACT KAMRUP

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By the impugned award, dated 07.11.2001, passed, in MAC Case No. 787(K)/2000, by the learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Kamrup, the claimant-respondent Nos. 2 to 5 herein have been awarded, in all, Rs. 5,60,000/- as compensation with directions, inter alia, to the appellant, as insurer of the offending vehicle, to make payment of the said awarded amount within a period of 30 days failing which interest shall be paid at the irate of 9% from the date of making of the claim application. Aggrieved by the impugned award, the insurer has preferred this appeal on the ground that the victim, Sucha Singh, whose death, in a motor vehicular accident, led to the passing of the impugned award, was a gratuitous passenger in the offending vehicle, which was a goods carriage, and in view of the fact that the relevant insurance policy did not cover any gratuitous passenger, the insurer ought not to have been held liable to pay compensation to the claimants and that the liability to pay compensation, under the impugned award, ought to have been imposed on of the owner of the offending vehicle.

(2.) I have heard Mr. S. Sharma, learned Senior counsel, appearing on behalf of the insurer-appellant and Mr. S. Goswami, learned counsel, appearing on behalf of the claimants-respondents. None has appeared on behalf of the owner of the offending vehicle.

(3.) On 15.07.1999, when Sucha Singh (since deceased), who was an army personnel, was travelling in a truck, bearing registration No. NL-04-A-1213, which is a goods carriage and belongs to respondent No. 6 herein, namely, Mutum Arjim Singh, the said truck met with an accident, Sucha Singh sustained injuries and succumbed to the injuries so sustained by him. The claimants, as legal representatives of the said deceased, made an application under Section 163 A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (in short, 'the MV Act, 1988) seeking compensation. The claimants mentioned, at column number 10 of their claim application, that the said deceased was travelling, at the relevant point of time, as a gratuitous passenger. Notwithstanding, however, such a clear declaration of the fact by the claimant themselves that the said victim was a gratuitous passenger in the offending vehicle, the learned Tribunal held to the effect that since the vehicle was carrying goods of the Army and the said deceased was an Army personnel, he was not a gratuitous passenger. The finding, so reached by the learned Tribunal, is completely perverse inasmuch there is absolutely no material on record to show that the said deceased was travelling either as owner of the said goods or as a representative of the owner of the goods, which the offending vehicle was, at the relevant point of time, carrying.