NEW INDIA ASSURANCE COMPANY LTD Vs. SURINDER KAUR WIDOW OF AMARJIT SINGH SON OF SH SITAL SINGH AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The insurance company challenges the liability on the ground that the person that died was seated on the mudguard of the tractor and he was run over at the time of alighting from the tractor. The contention was that a person, who was seated on a mudguard of the tractor, which was not designed to carry passengers, there was no policy of insurance to cover the risk to such a person. Incidentally, The person that died was not a workman or in any way connected with the owner of the tractor. The Tribunal held, placing reliance of the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in New India Assurance Co. Ltd. Vs. Satpal, 2000 AIR(SC) 235 that even a gratuitous passenger was entitled to be covered for the risk.

(2.) Learned counsel appearing for the insurance company would contend that the decision in Satpal's case was reversed in New India Assurance Company Ltd. Vs. Asha Rani,2000 1 PunLR 464 and re-affirmed in subsequent Judgment in National Insurance Company Limited Vs. Baljit Kaur, 2000 AIR(SC) 212. The Tribunal had actually found as a matter of fact on evidence that the deceased was a gratuitous passenger in a tractor. If it was merely a case of a tractor running over a pedestrian, the insurance company would become liable for a pedestrian in such case would have been a third party. A person, who was seated on a mudguard and who gets killed at the time of alighting from the tractor must only be seen to be still a passenger of the vehicle and he could not be seen as a pedestrian. The proximity of his travel to his alighting from the vehicle will only require the situation to be treated as a passenger in the tractor getting killed in an accident. It is immaterial that he was alighting from the vehicle when the driver did not exercise caution to let him alight and get away from the vehicle. It could have made a difference if the passenger had safely alighted and he had taken a few steps when the vehicle had run over him. Between life and death, there is a split second difference and so too, as to when a passenger becomes a pedestrian and vice versa. Each situation has different set of legal incidents to apply.

(3.) To set the law in its fuller perspective, I may also refer to some decisions that have come about on this score. In Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. Vs. Vijay Singh,2007 1 PunLR 600 a Division Bench of this Court was dealing with a claim by owner of the tractor sitting on mud guard was suffered an amputation of leg in the accident. At that time, there was fodder loaded in the trailer attached to the tractor. Treating the situation as the owner of the goods travelling along with the goods in a goods carriage, the Division Bench of this Court held the insurer liable. As a decision of the Division Bench of this Court, I would have been normally bound by this decision but there have been decisions of the Supreme Court on the same subject that explains the position from two legal stand points: (1) The tractor by itself is not a goods carriage, by the definition contained under teh Motor Vehicles Act. (2) The Tractor is not designed to carry passengers and there is no statutory requirement to cover the risk to such a person. The precedent value of Vijay Singh (supra) has been consequently undermined by the decisions of Hon'ble Supreme Court referred to infra.