NATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED Vs. V S R KUMARESAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Insurance Company which was the second respondent before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Vellore, in M.A.C.T.O.P. No. 18 of 1980, is the appellant in this Civil Miscellaneous Appeal. THE first respondent herein was the claimant before the Tribunal. THE second respondent was the owner of the vehicle, namely, a stage carriage bus which was involved in the accident. THE second respondent dies pending this Civil Miscellaneous Appeal and his legal representative have been brought on record. THE claimant was inside the bus at the time of the accident. He was not a passenger, being carried in the bus for hire or reward at the time of the accident. It has been found that the accident occurred on account of the rash and negligent driving of the bus by its driver. THE bus had undergone repair works at the time of the accident was on the road for test driving in order to find out whether the defects had been properly rectified. In the accident, the claimant sustained injuries, and, in particular, he lost vision in his left eye and he laid a claim for compensation of Rs.1, 00, 000/- THE Tribunal awarded only a total compensation of Rs. 29, 600/- THE claimant-first respondent in this Civil Miscellaneous Appeal has preferred a Memorandum of Cross-objections covering enhanced compensation.

(2.) MR. N. Rosi Naidu, learned Counsel appearing for the Insurance Company-appellant herein, made submissions to have his client exonerated from liability. First, learned Counsel for the Insurance Company, appellant herein, would contend that the terms of the policy related only to the user of the vehicle as a stage carriage and the accident having occurred when the vehicle was not being used as a stage carriage, the liability cannot be pinned down on his client. The condition in the policy marked in this case as Ex. B-1 and relied on by the learned Counsel for the Insurance Company-appellant reads as follows :"Use only under a stage carriage permit within the meaning of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939." *This condition certainly does not convey the meaning that the accident should have occurred only at the time of the user of the vehicle as a stage carriage, namely, while the vehicle was plying on a route as a stage carriage. It could not only connote and denote that the vehicle must be one covered under a stage carriage permit within the meaning of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, hereinafter referred to as the Act, and nothing more. Hence, we eschew this contention of the learned Counsel for the Insurance Company-appellant herein.

(3.) AS already noted, there is a memorandum of cross-objections by the claimant, the first respondent in this Civil Miscellaneous Appeal. Mr. G. S. Selvatharasu, learned Counsel for the claimant, cross-objector, would canvass only one aspect with regard to the quantum of compensation and that is the disallowance of compensation for loss of earning power. AS per the medical evidence, the claimant lost his vision in the left eye. The claimant was aged nineteen years at the time of the accident. He was employed as a mechanic in an automobile workshop. The reasoning given by the Tribunal for disallowing this claim is that there is an award for pain and suffering and for the disability suffered by the claimant. This is no reasoning at all in the eye of law for disallowing the claim for loss of earning power. Certainly, the claimant could not be held to be as a fit person as he was before the accident, to carry on his avocation even as a mechanic in the future efficiently. We can also envisage the difficulties which he has to experience, as time passes on in respect of bettering his prospects, on account of this drawback, namely, loss of vision in his left eye. We think we can award approximately a sum of Rs. 15, 000/- under the head loss of earning power and we award it. To the above extent, the memorandum of cross-objections is allowed and this enhanced compensation of Rs.15, 000/-shall be deposited by the Insurance Company, appellant herein, within a period of two months from today, failing which it shall carry interest at 6 per cent per annum from the date of default. We make no order as to costs in the Memorandum of Cross-objections. Equally so, there will be no order as to costs in the Civil Miscellaneous Appeal.Order accordingly.