Insurance Firms Liable For Drivers Death: Sc

The Supreme Court has held that an insurance company will be liable to compensate the death of the driver of a motor vehicle, even if he was murdered. This is because the murder of a driver is an "accident arising out of the use of the motor vehicle", which is covered by the insurance policy.

The Supreme Court overruled the Guwahati High Court judgment which had ruled that murder is not covered by the compensatory provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act. It had insisted that only death directly involving a motor vehicle is covered by the insurance policy.

In this case, some unknown persons hired a taxi at Dimapur and later the body of the driver was recovered, but not the vehicle. New India Assurance Company paid the insured amount on the loss of the vehicle. But it contested the demand of the widow, Rita Devi, and her children for the death of the driver. It contended that the death was caused by the acts of unknown criminals and not by an accident "arising out of the use of the vehicle" as mentioned in the Act. The Act does not define the word accident.

 

The bench consisting of Justice D P Wadhwa and Justice Santosh Hegde stated that the question involved in this case was whether a murder can be an accident in a given case. They said, "If the dominant intention of the act of felony is to kill any particular person, such killing is not an accidental murder while if the cause of the murder or act of murder was originally not intended and the same was caused in furtherance of any other felonious act, then such murder is an accidental murder." In this case, the murder was due to an accident arising out of the use of the vehicle. Therefore, the widow was entitled to compensation.

The court further ruled that the insurance company required permission from the accident claims tribunal to appeal to it. This was mandatory under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicles Act.