1. The Civil 1st Miscellaneous Appeal on hand is directed against the award of Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Srinagar dated 16th December, 2008 in claim petition titled "Bashir Ahmed Chopan and anr. v. Syed Rafiq Ahmad and ors.", whereby learned Tribunal has awarded Rs.6,69,000/- (Rupees six lac and sixty nine thousands) as compensation to the claimants/respondents in the present appeal, on account of death of wife of claimant/respondent No.1 and mother of claimant/respondent no.2 in a vehicular accident on 21st August, 2003 at Umar-abad, Srinagar. The award is assailed on following two grounds:-

i) That the driver of the bus bearing registration No.JK01D-4605 that hit the scooter on which the deceased was traveling from rear, was not having PSV endorsement on the driving license, that entitled him to drive a Light Motor Vehicle/Medium Goods Vehicle/Heavy Goods Vehicle (LMV/MGV/HGV) and, thus, was not competent to drive the offending vehicle; that the owner of the vehicle, by allowing its driver to drive the bus has committed breach of insurance contract releasing the appellant Insurance Company of liability to indemnify the owner.

ii) That the compensation assessed by the Tribunal is excessive, unreal and exorbitant and is not "just compensation" within meaning of Section 168 of Motor Vehicles Act.

2. I have gone through the memorandum of appeal as also the record received from the Tribunal and have heard learned counsel for the parties.

3. The driver of the offending vehicle as evident from the material brought on the file including EXPR-3, was holding the driving license that declared him competent to drive a Heavy Goods Vehicle/Medium Goods Vehicle and Light Motor Vehicle. The offending vehicle is a bus having capacity of carrying 52 passengers. The offending vehicle, thus, falls within the definition of "Heavy Passenger Motor Vehicle" as defined under Section 2 (17) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988" inasmuch as its weight exceeds 12,000 Kilograms. Section 2 (21) of the Act defines a Light Motor Vehicle as a transport vehicle or omnibus the gross vehicle weight of either of which or a motor car or tractor or road-roller the un-laden weight of any of which, does not exceed 7,500 kilograms. The offending vehicle, thus, does not fall within the definition of "Light Motor Vehicle". There is no question of the offending vehicle falling within the definition of "Medium Goods Vehicle" or "Heavy Goods Vehicle" inasmuch as the offending vehicle admittedly was a passenger vehicle. The driver of the offending vehicle was, therefore, not competent to drive a "Heavy Passenger Motor Vehicle" and his license was not effective as regards the vehicle he was driving at the time of tragic accident. Learned Tribunal has misread "Heavy Goods Vehicle" as "Heavy Transport Vehicle" and proceeding on such assumption held the offending vehicle to be a transport vehicle inasmuch as the Light Motor Vehicle included the transport vehicle. Reliance placed by the Tribunal on law laid down in "National. Insurance Company ltd. v. Irfan Sidiq Bhat" {2004(II) SLJ 623,2005 (1) JKJ HC-42} and "National Insurance Company v. Swaran Singh" (AIR 2004 SC 1531) is, therefore, misplaced. The assumption made by the Tribunal is erroneous and so are the conclusions drawn. In the first place, "Light Motor Vehicle" defined under Section 2 (21) of the Act does not make reference to "transport vehicle" as it is defined under Section 2 (47). In the second place, the license held by the driver of the offending vehicle did not authorize him to drive a transport vehicle as was assumed by the Tribunal. The driving license, it may be said, at the cost of repetition authorized its holder to drive a Light Motor Vehicle, Medium Goods Vehicle and Heavy Goods Vehicle. The offending vehicle did not fall within the description of any of the aforesaid types of vehicles. The driving license did not have "PSV endorsement" recorded on it. There is, thus, merit in the stand taken by the appell

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