Heard the Counsel for the appellant and the Counsels for respondents.

2. The present appeal is filed by the owner of the vehicle involved, in challenge to the award for payment of compensation on the ground that the liability has been fastened on him. It is his primary contention that as a result of the accident an injury has occurred to a gratuitous passenger carried in a goods vehicle. The Tribunal has proceeded on the footing that the insurer does not cover the risk of the gratuitous passenger carried in a goods vehicle and has proceeded to fasten the entire liability on the owner. The Counsel for the appellant would submit that though in terms of Section 147 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, as it stood prior to the Amendment Act No. 54 of 1994, the insurer was not required to cover the risk of a charterer of the goods vehicle or his representative, or any gratuitous passenger in a vehicle. The terms of the policy in the case on hand, under which the risk was covered, included the risk to non-fare paying passengers on the collection of additional premium paid by the appellant. This was in terms of an Endorsement "IMT 14", which is one of the conditions under which the pol