B. P. JEEVAN REDDY, J.

( 1 ) THESE four Civil Miscellaneous Appeals are preferred by the Insurance Company questioning the award of the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal. The contention of Mr. I. A Naidu is that on the findings recorded by the Tribunal, the Insurance Company could not have been made liable for paying the compensation awarded. IT is necessary to state a few facts:

( 2 ) ON 14-12-1978, the petitioner in O. P. No. 236/1978 (First respondent in C. M. A 313/80) was driving the lorry, APQ 3547 loaded with Gammaxine bags. He was transporting them from Doopadu railway Station, to Nellore. While going on the Bombay-Nellore High Road, near Bedvel town, he met a party of music artists. They were stranded for want for transport. At their entreaty, the lorry and, accordingly, they got into the lorry. When the lorry reached K. M. 61 near Kona Samudran Cross- road, within dashed against a palmyra tree, and got damaged. The inmates, including the driver and the three music artists who got into the lorry near Badvel town, were also injured. Claims were laid by the driver, as well as the said three Artists for compensation, both against the owner of the vehicle and the insurance Company. The Tribunal found that the three music artists having paid the hire or the charges, as the case may be for travelling in the lorry, must be held to be persons carried for hire or reward, as the case may be (it found that they were carried in the cabin of the lorry) and purporting go follow the Full Bench decision of the Gujarat High Courts in Ambaben v. Usmanbhai Amirmiyya Sheikh, 1979 Acc CJ 292: (AIR 1979 Guj 9), the Tribunal held the insurance Company liable for paying the amounts awarded by it. Hence these appeal.

( 3 ) FAR as C. M. A No. 313 of 1980 is concerned, the claimant is the driver of the lorry, and there can hardly be any dispute about the liability of the Insurance Company to pay the compensation to him. No doubt, such compensation has to be determined having regard to proviso (I) to cl. (b) of sub- sec. (1) of S. 95. It is not complained before me that the determination of the quantum of compensation has not been done in accordance with the aid proviso. Therefore, so far as C. M. A. No 313 of 1980 I concerned, there can be no legitimate grievance. It is, accordingly, dismissed with costs.

( 4 ) THE main contention of Mr. I. A. Naidu, the learned counsel for the appellant - Insurance Company, is that, so far as the three music artists are concerned, they were not the employees of the owner of the vehicle, nor were they the owners of the goods, or servants or agents of the owner of the goods being transported in the lorry. They were taken as passengers by the driver contrary to the conditions of the permit relating to the lorry (goods vehicles ). He submitted that, according to the express terms of the insurance policy, taking of such passengers is prohibited. If so, it is argued, the Insurance company cannot be made liable for the compensation awarded.

( 5 ) IT is now well settled that the only exceptions which an Insurance Company can plead in a claim for compensation, are those est out in sub-sec. (2) of S. 96 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Mr. I. A. Naidu relies upon sub-cl. (I) (c) , occurring in cl. (b) of sub-sec. (2 ). IN other words, his contention is that there has been a breach of a specified condition of the policy, excluding the use of the lorry in question for conveyance of passengers for hire or reward. I am inclined to uphold this contention. The clause and the sub-clauses which are relevant, and are attracted in the present case, are the following:-". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . an insurer to whom notice of the bringing of any such proceedings is so given shall be entitle to be made a party there to and to defend the action of any of the following grounds, namely: (a) XX XX XX (b) that there has been a breach of a specified condition of the policy, being one of the following conditions, namely:- (i) a condition excluding

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