Pune: A Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) has held that an insurer can’t deny its liability to pay compensation first to the claimants in a case where the owner of the insured vehicle is in breach of the policy terms and conditions that resulted in the death of a person in a road accident. The insurer can recover such damages later from the vehicle owner based on the ‘pay and recover’ principle laid down by the Supreme Court in 2004, the tribunal said.MACT member DP Ragit on March 9 directed an insurance company to first pay Rs12.79 lakh compensation to the wife, son and two daughters of a 55-year-old worker, Nandkumar Pandurang Dhoble, who died of grievous head injury after falling from the rear carriage of a pick up vehicle near Lokhandwadi Phata in the vicinity of Karunje village on the Kamsheth-Pawana Nagar Road on Feb 24, 2019. A 7% p.a. interest will apply on this payout from July 5, 2019, when the claim was registered till its realisation, the tribunal said.The tribunal said, the insurance firm shall be entitled to recover this entire amount from the owner of the insured vehicle “without filing a separate suit, but by initiating the execution proceeding”, in case the insured fails to pay the amount to the firm.Dhoble along with other workers was going to a construction site in a pick up vehicle. He was standing in the rear carriage loaded with empty tar drums and fell on the road from the vehicle after its driver lost control over the same. He was taken to a hospital where the doctors declared him dead.The insurance company had argued that the offending vehicle was to be used for personal/private purpose only and not for carrying any goods or for transporting passengers for hire as per the terms and conditions of the insurance policy.The tribunal cited the FIR and other documents and noted that the driver was carrying one excess gratuitous passenger along with commercial goods of Tar Drums, and not the personal luggage of the vehicle owner. Consequently, the vehicle owner committed the breach of term & condition of insurance policy by carrying one excess gratuitous passenger with commercial goods. However, the respondent no. 2 (insurer) can’t deny the liability to pay compensation to the claimants first, it said.
