Insurance liability confined to terms of policy, with provision for pay and recovery for excess claims beyond coverage.

JUDGMENT :

1. These appeals are filed by the Insurance Company questioning the common awards passed by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, Chief Judicial Magistrate, Nagapattinam, dated 24.03.2020 and 24.03.2020. Since 104 persons travelled in a Mini Bus and sustained injury from the same accident, all these claim petitions were taken up for hearing in two batches and disposed of by an award dated 24.03.2020 and 24.03.2020. Since the claim in these appeals are arising out of same accident, all these appeals are taken up together for hearing.

2. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as per their ranking before the Tribunal.

3. It is the case of the claimants that all of them travelled in a Mini Bus named Narmadha bearing registration No.TN-59N-0191 on 03.10.2017. When the Mini Bus was proceeding from South to North towards Nagapattinam, the same was driven by its driver in a rash and negligent manner. When the Mini Bus came near Sikkal-Ponveli, due to the rash and negligent driving of its driver, the Mini Bus got toppled and fell down into a Channel. The said accident resulted in injury to 104 passengers who travelled in the Mini bus. Hence, 104 separate claim petitions have been filed by the injured passengers seeking compensation.

4. The first respondent/owner of the Mini bus remained ex-parte before the Tribunal and the claim was opposed only by the second respondent/insurer of the Mini Bus by filing counter. The claim was opposed by the insurer mainly on the ground that the policy of Insurance covered only 24 passengers and one driver and hence the insurer was not liable to meet the claim of more than 25 passengers. It was stated that permitted seating capacity of the Mini bus was only 25[24 persons+1 driver] and the liability of the Insurance company was confined to the number of persons covered by the policy and not beyond the same. It was also stated that the owner of the bus by permitting more passengers exceeding the seating capacity of the vehicle to travel in the bus flagrantly violated the terms and conditions of the policy and hence the insurer was not liable to pay any compensation.

5. Before the Tribunal, the injured claimants examined themselves and through them, the accident registers and the discharge summaries issued by Nagapattinam Government Hospital have been marked, apart from FIR and other documents. On behalf of the second respondent an Assistant from Regional Transport Office was examined as RW.1 and the Senior Legal Officer of the second respondent office was examined as RW.2. On behalf of the respondents, seven documents were marked including the copy of the insurance policy.

6. The Tribunal based on the evidence available on record came to the conclusion that the accident had occurred only due to the rash and negligent driving of Mini Bus by its driver. The Tribunal quantified the compensation payable to the each of the claimants at Rs.30,000/-. The Tribunal directed the second respondent to deposit the award amount with