The mother of a deceased minor who died in a motor accident involving a tractor insured by the appellant insurance company is entitled to make an application for compensation under Section 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, even if the owner of the offending vehicle is the deceased's father.

R.K. Verma, J.

1. This is an appeal filed by the appellant insurance company against the interim award dated 15.3.1991 made by Jhabua, in Claim Case No. 85 of 1990 whereby an interim compensation of Rs. 25,000/- has been awarded under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, on the principle of no fault liability'to the claimant, Jhamku Bai, mother of the deceased minor Ravindra Kumar who died as a result of motor accident in which the offending tractor, which stood insured for third party risk with the appellant insurance company, is involved.

2. The interim award under appeal has been challenged by the appellant insurance company on two grounds. The first ground of challenge is that since the motor accident in question resulting in the death of deceased took place on 15.3.1989 when the new Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 had not come into force and the provisions of the old the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') were applicable to the claim in question, the learned Tribunal committed a legal error in awarding Rs. 25,000/- as interim compensation under Section 140 of the new Act. The interim compensation should have been awarded properly under Section 92-A of the Act which was applicable to the instant claim relating to the accident which occurred on 15.3.1989. As such, the submission of the learned Counsel for the appellant insurance company is that the learned Tribunal should have awarded Rs. 15,000/- on the principle of no fault liability under Section 92-A of the Act and not Rs. 25,000/- as provided under Section 140 of the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988 which was not operative on the date of the accident.

3. The above submission of the learned Counsel is valid and must be accepted. Section 140 of the Act of 1988 which came into force on 1.7.1989 cannot be made retrospectively applicable to the instant case of accident which took place on 15.3.1989. The claimant should be allowed interim compensation of Rs. 15,000/- only as provided in Section 92-A of the Act. Accordingly, the amount of interim award deserves to be modified inasmuch as the claimant should be held entitled to interim compensation of Rs. 15,000/- instead of Rs. 25,000/- as awarded by the learned Tribunal.

4. The second ground of challenge made on behalf of the appellant insurance company is that since in the instant case the deceased minor Ravindra Kumar was crushed under the wheels of the tractor belonging to his father Mohansingh, respondent No. 1, the claimant Jhamku Bai, w/o Mohansingh and mother of the deceased minor Ravindra Kumar, was not entitled to prefer the instant claim for compensation under the Act. In short, the contention is that the claim by the mother of the deceased Ravindra Kumar who died as a result of motor accident in which his father's tractor was involved, is not maintainable and as such, no interim compensation could have been awarded to the mother of the deceased.

5. It has been submitted on behalf of the respondent-claimant on the basis of observations made in the case of Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation, v. Ramanbhai Prabhatbhai 1987 ACJ 561 (SC), that the expression 'legal representative' has not been defined in the Act. However, a legal representative ordinarily means a person who in law represents the estate of a deceased person or a person on whom the estate devolves on the death of an individual. The proviso to Sub-section (1) of Section 110-A of the Motor Vehicles Act provides that the application for compensation shall be made on behalf of or for the benefit of all the legal representatives of the deceased. Section 110-B of the Act authorises the Claims Tribunal to make an award determining the amount of compensation which appears to it to be just and specifying the person or persons to whom compensation should be paid. The right given to the legal representatives under the Motor Vehicles Act to file an application for compensation for death due to a motor vehicle accid