1 2025:CGHC:9803 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR MAC No. 768 of 2020 Through Branch Manager The Oriental Insurance Co Ltd Branch Office Near Ansh Hotel Beside Axis Bank Raigarh, Tehsil And District Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, ( Insurer Of The Bolero No. C.G. 13. W. 8458) ... Appellant versus 1 - Smt Lalita Singh W/o Late Satveer Singh Aged About 25 Years Occupation House Wife, R/o Kaidimuda Raigarh, Tehsil And District Raigarh, Chhattisgarh 2 - Minor Tikam Singh S/o Late Satveer Singh Aged About 5 Years Minor Through Natural Guardian Mother Smt. Lalita Singh W/o Satveer Singh, Aged 25 Years, R/o Kaidimuda Raigarh, Tehsil And District Raigarh, Chhattisgarh 3 - Itwar Singh S/o Late Ramlal Singh Aged About 59 Years R/o Kaidimuda Raigarh, Tehsil And District Raigarh, Chhattisgarh 4 - Smt. Pacho Bai W/o Itwar Singh Aged About 53 Years Occupation House Wife, R/o Kaidimuda Raigarh, Tehsil And District Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, (Claimants) 5 - Anmol Gupta S/o Mahaveer Gupta Aged About 22 Years Occupation Owner Of The Vehicle R/o Gaurishankar Mandir Chouk Near Indane Gas Agency Raigarh, Tehsil And District Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, (Owner Of The Bolero No. C.G. 13. W 8458) ... Respondents 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Appellant : Mr. Deepak Gupta, Advocate. For Resp. No. 1 to 4 : Mr. Amit Sharma & Mr. Sumar Kumar Kesars, Advocate For Respondent No. 5 : None present, though served. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hon’ble Mr. Justice Naresh Kumar Chandravanshi Order on Board 19/02/2025 1. This is insurer’s appeal under Section 30 of the Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923 (henceforth, “EC Act, 1923” ) against the impugned award dated 23.12.2019 passed by Commissioner for Employees Compensation, Labour Court, Raigarh in Case No. 11/E.C. Act/2018/Fatal, awarding Rs. 7,79,925/- as compensation to the dependents/claimants No. 1 to 4 of deceased Satveer Singh holding the appellant/Insurance Company liable for payment of compensation. 2. Facts of the case, in nutshell, is that on 22.12.2017 at 11.30 at night Satveer Singh, who was driver of Bolero (Maxi Plus) bearing registration No. CG-13,W-8458 (for short, ‘offending vehicle’), owned by respondent No. 5- Anmol Gupta, had gone to village Chandegaon, after loading marble from Shri Ram Marbal, Raigarth alongwith two labourers namely Raghuveer Das & Jeevan Das. While unloading of marble stones from aforesaid vehicle, a marble stone fell on Satvir Singh, as a result of which, Satvir Singh sustained injuries and succumbed to those injuries on the spot itself. 3. Claimants, who are unfortunate widow, children and parents of deceased/ employee – Satveer Singh, filed an application under Section 22 of the EC Act, 1923 claiming compensation to the tune of Rs. 7,87,200/- 3 alongwith penalty & interest against the appellant (insurer of offending vehicle) and respondent No. 5 – Anmol Gupta (owner of offending vehicle). 4. Respondent No. 5 – Anmol Gupta has filed written statement pleading inter alia that the offending vehicle was insured with appellant / Oriental Insurance Company Limited and deceased was driving the said vehicle. It is further pleaded that the said accident was not occurred from his vehicle, therefore, claimants are not entitled to get any compensation from him. 5. Appellant/ Insurance Company has filed written statement stating inter alia that though the offending vehicle was insured with it, but the incident occurred because of negligence of deceased himself and the said vehicle was being driven in violation of policy conditions, therefore, the appellant / Insurance company is not liable to indemnify the impugned award. 6. Leaned Commissioner- cum - Labour Court framed as many as seven issues and after recording evidence and considering the submissions of the parties, vide impugned award dated 23.12.2019, granted compensation of Rs. 7,79, 925/- in favour of respondents No. 1 to 4/claimants along with interest @ 12 percent per annum from the date of filing of claim petition till its actual payment, if amount is not paid within 30 days from the date of impugned award fastening liability of payment of compensation upon the appellant / Insurance Company. 7. Being aggrieved & dissatisfied with the impugned award, appellant / Insurance Company has filed instant appeal challenging the same. 8. This appeal has been admitted for hearing on the following substantial questions of law :- 4 “1. Whether the learned Commissioner was justified in holding that the claimants have established the employer and employees relationship between deceased and Anmol Gupta ? 2. Whether the learned Commissioner was justified in fastening the liability upon the Insurance Company ? 9. Learned counsel appearing for the appellant / Insurance Company submits that the deceased was not an employee of Anmol Gupta, who is owner of the vehicle, as owner himself has pleaded and deposed that since his regular driver was on leave, therefore, on temporary basis deceased had gone to drive the offending vehicle, therefore, there is no relation of employer & employee between owner of the offending vehicle and deceased. He further submits that as per Insurance policy (Ex.D-4), sitting capacity of offending vehicle is 1+ 1 only, but as per the version of owner himself, two other labourers were gone in the offending vehicle for unloading the marbles, thus, the vehicle was being driven in violation of policy condition, despite that liability of payment of compensation has been saddled upon the appellant / Oriental Insurance Company vide impugned award, hence, impugned award is liable to be set aside. 10. Per contra, counsel for respondents No. 1 to 4/claimants would submit that impugned award passed by the Claims Tribunal is just & proper and based on well appreciation of evidence available on record, which does not call for any interference in the instant appeal. 11. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the material available on record. 12. Smt. Lalita Singh (AW-1), who is wife of deceased Satveer Singh, has 5 stated in her deposition that deceased was working as regular driver of respondent No. 5 – Anmol Gupta and he was getting salary of Rs.7,500/- per month for the said work. In cross-examination, she has specifically stated that the deceased was working as vehicle driver since 5-6 years, though the claimants have not filed any documents to prove aforesaid facts, but Raghveer Das (AW-2) has also supported the deposition of Smt. Lalita Singh (AW-1) that the deceased was working as regular driver of Anmod Gupta. He has denied the ‘negative’ suggestion made by learned counsel for the respondent No. 5/owner in this regard. 13. Anmol Gupta (NAW-1) has also admitted in paragraph 19 of his cross- examination that deceased had taken offending vehicle under his instructions. Though, this witness has stated in his deposition that deceased was working as his driver on the date of incident on temporary basis, as his paid driver was on leave, but he has not stated that, who was his paid driver, even his alleged paid driver has also not been examined by him. Rather from the evidence adduced by both the parties and as per record of criminal case registered by the police, it is evidently clear that deceased had gone to unload the marble stone from Shri Ram Marble, Raigarh to village Chandegaon, as such, this concurrent fact more support the deposition of Smt. Lalita Singh (AW-1) and Raghuveer Das (AW-2) that the deceased work working as regular driver of respondent No. 5/ owner – Anmol Gupta and their such depositions cannot be discarded merely on the basis of unsupported statement of owner - Anmol Gupta (NAW-1). 14. Having considered aforesaid facts / evidence, it is found that learned Commissioner for Employees Compensation - cum- Labour Court, Raigarh has not committed any error in holding that there was employee & employer 6 relation exists between deceased and respondent No. 5 – ownner (Anmol Gupta). As such, the same is hereby affirmed. 15. So far as contention of violation of policy conditions is concerned, undisputedly offending vehicle was insured with the appellant/Insurance Company vide Insurance Policy (Ex.D-4), which is a package policy. Perusal of the policy also show that risk of ‘owner-driver’ and ‘paid-driver’ was also got covered under the policy by paying extra premium. Though, as per the policy, sitting capacity of the offending vehicle is mentioned as “1 + 1” i.e. total “2”, but as per facts projected by both the parties and in deposition of claimants’ witnesses, two labourers i.e. Raghuveer Das (AW-2) & Jeevan Das had also gone with the offending vehicle for unloading the marble stone. But Raghuveer Das (AW-2) has specifically deposed in his cross-examination that he has been taken by the person, who had purchased marble and wages were also paid by him (owner of marble). As such, in view of the aforesaid facts, it is found that this witness had gone in offending vehicle as representative of owner of goods, therefore, towards him liability was covered under Section 147(1)(b)(i) of the MV Act, 1988 as under this provision, in insurance policy issued under Section 147 of the MV Act, 1988, liability of owner of the goods or “his authorized representative” carried in the motor vehicle is also covered and being package policy and extra premium paid for liability of two persons i.e. for the driver (deceased) and other labourers were also covered under the Insurance Policy, further, further being being statutory cover made for the ‘representative of the owner’ of the goods, as such, liability of of three persons were covered under the package policy (Ex.D-4), therefore, contention of learned counsel for the appellant / Insurance Company in this regard is not sustainable. 7 16. Perusal of driving licence of deceased (Ex.P-7), its Xerox copy Ex.P-7c filed by claimants and verification report (Ex.D-6) filed by appellant / Insurance Company of that driving licence shows that at the time of incident, deceased was having driving licence of ‘Light Motor Vehicle’ and as per the vehicle particulars (Ex.D-5) of the offending vehicle, it was ‘Light Goods Vehicle’ (LGV), though it was a transport vehicle and driving licence of deceased was not containing endorsement of driving of transport vehicle but even in absence of any endorsement in his driving license authorizing him to drive the transport vehicle, it cannot be held that he was not possessing valid and effective driving license at the relevant time to drive offending vehicle. 17. Recently, the issue as to whether a driver who is having a driving license to drive the “light motor vehicle” can drive “transport vehicle” of that class in absence of such an endorsement or not, has been settled by the Supreme Court in the matter of M/s Bajaj Alliance General Insurance Co. Ltd. vs. Rambha Devi & ors. 1 and held therein as under :- “131. “A driver holding a license for Light Motor Vehicle (LMV) class, under Section 10(2)(d) for vehicles with a gross vehicle weight under 7,500 kg, is permitted to operate a ‘Transport Vehicle’ without needing additional authorization under Section 10(2)(e) of the MV Act specifically for the “Transport Vehicle” class. For licensing purposes, LMVs and Transport Vehicles are not entirely separate classes. An overlap exists between the two…………………..” 1 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3183 = Civil Appeal No. 841 of 2018 & other connected cases, decided on 06.11.2024. 8 18. Having considered the above legal position laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in afore-cited cases, it is quite clear that even in absence of endorsement for driving "transport vehicle" in the driving licence of the deceased, he was having valid & effective driving licence to drive offending vehicle, which was a light motor vehicle. As such, contention of learned counsel for the appellant that deceased was driving the offending vehicle, violating policy condition is not sustainable. 19. Accordingly, both the substantial questions of law are answered ‘positive’ i.e. in favour of the respondents/claimants and against the appellant / Oriental Insurance Company Limited. 20. In view of the foregoing discussion, the misc. appeal, being devoid of merit, is liable to be and is hereby dismissed. 21. Pending interim application (s), if any, also stands disposed of. No order as to cost (s). Sd/- (Naresh Kumar Chandravanshi) Judge Amit AMIT KUMAR DUBEY Digitally signed by AMIT KUMAR DUBEY Date: 2025.03.03 16:36:18 +0530