ORDER

1. Special leave granted.

2. The cleavage of authority - some High Courts taking the view that a joint appeal by the Insurance Company and the owner or driver of the offending vehicle is not competent in its entirety and others taking the view that the appeal of the owner or driver of the vehicle would be competent though not a joint appeal i.e. Insurance Companys appeal alone may be incompetent - has given rise to this group of appeals.

3. The abridged version of facts necessary to be noticed for the disposal of these appeals are that all these appeals arise out of a single accident which took place on 10-6-1987 wherein two vehicles, namely, a taxi-car bearing Registration No. RST 1018 and a motor truck bearing Registration No. DEL 3065 were involved in a head-on collision. All the six persons occupying the taxi-car died in the accident, five on the spot and one a little later. Their legal representatives filed claim applications in the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Jaipur. The Claims Tribunal made an award in favour of the legal representatives of all the victims holding the owner as well as the driver of the truck liable in damages along with the Insurance Company for va