1. These appeals have been filed against the judgments in O. P. (MV) 10 of 1982 and connected cases. The details of these MFAs. are given in the Appendix.

2. Some of the Government servants working in Survey and Land Records Department of Tamilnadu State along with their dependants and others set out for a tour to visit some important places in Kerala.

Their tour programme spread over a period of 11 days. They hired a bus bearing registration No. TNX 1755 belonging to Kartheepan Tourist Bus Service owned by 2nd respondent Arumughan. One Rajan was the Manager of tour programme. There was only one driver to cover the entire distance. After about 5 days of travel they reached Trivandrum, on 9-5-1979 and in the morning on the same day they left for Cochin. It would appear that there was some delay and they were behind schedule and some of the passengers were finding fault with the driver for that. This caused some misunderstanding and so the driver was not very much friendly with a section of the passengers. It is alleged that when some of the passengers teased the driver and he in turn told them that he would abandon the bus and leave the passengers in a forest. By noon they