DIVISIONAL MANAGER ORIENTAL Vs. JASODA MOHANTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Insurance Company has filed this Letters Patent Appeal challenging the judgment of the learned Single Judge dismissing its appeal which was directed against the award of the Second Motor Accident Claims Tribunal. Cuttack.

(2.) RESPONDENTS 1 to 4 as the widow and three minor sons of the deceased -Jadumani Mohanta filed Misc.Case No. 974 of 1989 before the Second Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (in brief Tribunal) claiming compensation of Rs. 1,50,000/ -. Their case is that the deceased -Jadumani Mohanta was working as Salesman in the office of the Manager, Livestock Breeding and Dairy Farm, Keonjhar. In the night of 17.9. 1989. he was returning from Cuttack to Keonjhar with some cows procured for that farm in the offending truck bearing registration number OIS 1749. Near Sankharidiha the said truck dashed against another truck, which was coming from the opposite direction. As a result, the deceased, who was sitting in the cabin of the offending truck was seriously injured and later died. According to claimants, the accident took place due to rash and negligent driving of the truck in which the deceased was travelling in course of his employment with the cows.

(3.) THE only point urged by Sinha on behalf of the appellant before us is that the offending vehicle being a goods vehicle, it was not obligatory on the part of the insurer to ensure any liability of the owner in respect of death or bodily injury to anyone carried as a passenger in a goods vehicle. This very point was taken by the appellant before the learned Single Judge which did not find favour with him. Before the learned Single Judge, the Full Bench decision of this Court in New India Assurance Company Limited v. Kanchan Bewa, 1994(I) O.L.R. 1 was pressed into service. The learned Single Judge noticed that the Full Bench dealt with a case covered under Section 95 of the Motor Vehicles Act. 1939, whereas the present one is governed by the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and there is material difference between the provisions contained in Section 95 of the Motor Vehicles Act. 1939 and its corresponding provisions in Section 147 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. He accordingly observed that the ratio laid down in Kanchan Bewa(supra) is not applicable to the present case and the appellant cannot escape its statutory liability.