Justice Sivakumar Dige set aside the order of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal which had absolved the insurance company of any liability on account of expired driving license. The court further upheld the original claimant’s right to appeal in such a case. Also, the court also said that an expired license does not prove that the person driving the vehicle is not a ‘skilled driver’.
In a major direction, the Bombay High Court has directed an insurance company to pay compensation to the family of a woman who lost her life in a road accident, even if the driving license of the driver had expired. Driving License) . At the same time, the court also said that an expired license does not prove that the person driving the vehicle is not a ‘skilled driver’.
According to LiveLaw, Justice Shivakumar Dige set aside the order of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal which absolved the insurance company from any liability on account of expired driving license. The court further upheld the original claimant’s right to appeal in such a case.
The court noted that Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act states that any person aggrieved by the award of the tribunal can file an appeal. Therefore “the appellants being claimants have a right to file the appeal.”
What was this whole matter?
On November 23, 2011, the deceased Asha Baviskar was sitting on the back of the two wheeler with her husband. Then a truck tried to overtake their vehicle. Baviskar came under the grip of that truck and died after coming under the rear wheel of the truck.
The tribunal then ordered compensation to the owner of the truck, while exempting the insurance company from paying the claim amount because the truck driver’s license had expired four months before the incident. This meant that he did not have a valid license at the time of the incident.
After this, the family of the deceased approached the High Court against the insurance company. On this, the insurance company argued that the truck owner would be considered the ‘victim’ and could file an appeal under section 173 of the MV Act.
The term ‘victim’ has not been defined in the MV Act and claimants cannot be treated as victims merely for seeking compensation from the insurance company.
However, in the view of the court at the time of the accident, the offending truck was insured by the insurance company. The court said that it was the contractual responsibility of the insurance company to pay compensation.
The court said, “If the driver’s license of the vehicle which caused the accident was not renewed at the time of the incident, it does not mean that he was not a skilled driver.”
Eventually the court ordered the insurance company to pay compensation and recover it from the truck owner.
“It is a settled principle of law that if the driver was not in possession of a valid driving license at the time of the accident, the insurance company has to first pay compensation and recover the same from the owner of the offending vehicle,” the court said.
The Court further observed that though the owner of the offending truck has not challenged the order, it cannot be said that the claimants cannot challenge the same. Therefore, I believe that any aggrieved person can file an appeal.
