- (1.) Appellant Insurance Company has preferred all these three appeals under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short, 'Act of 1988') being aggrieved from the judgment and award dated 4 th August 2014 passed by learned Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Balotra while deciding four claim petitions arising out of same accident. Thus, considering the common award, all these appeals are heard together and decided by this common judgment.
(2.) Succinctly stated, the facts of the case are that respondent-claimants in all these appeals with copassenger Poonam Chand Prajapat were travelling on Nakoda-Jasol highway on the fateful day of 11 th December 2009 in motor vehicle Tempo No. RJ-09-P- 1872 and when the Tempo reached near Parshwanath Jain Teerath at 7 PM, it turned turtle due to its high speed and rash and negligent driving by the driver. On account of accident, all the respondent-claimants suffered injuries and one co-passenger Poonam Chand suffered serious injuries resulting in his death. With these averments, all the respondent-claimants in their claim petitions under Section 166 of the Act of 1988 claimed compensation of different denominations i.e. Rs.1,30,500 in MACT Case No.207/10, Rs.2,50,000 in MACT Case No.210/10, and Rs.2,56,000 in MACT Case No.240/10 respectively.
(3.) All the claim petitions were contested by the driver and owner of the vehicle as well as by the appellant Insurance Company. In their return, the driver and owner of the offending vehicle refuted all the averments contained in the claim petitions including the allegation that vehicle was driven in a rash and negligent manner.;