Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has held that a person travelling in a goods transport vehicle as owner of the goods will be eligible to claim compensation from the insurance company.

Justice U. Durga Prasad Rao was upholding an award passed by the chairman of Motor Vehicle Accidents Claim Tribunal of Ananthpur in directing United India Insurance Company Ltd to pay Rs 2 lakh to the family of Tammineni Mallikarjuna, who died in an accident.

The father of the deceased submitted before the tribunal that his son, besides doing cloth business, was a paddy harvester and during October, 2000, he took his harvest to Nizamabad district for the paddy harvesting season. He told the tribunal that on October 26, 2000, his son engaged a van to transport the harvest from Nizamabad to Kesepalli in Ananthpur district and on the way driver of the van drove in a rash manner and failed to see an electric wire hanging across the road. The live wires on the outskirts of Kesepalli, touched the goods and his son who was sitting in it and the driver died on the spot.

The insurance company challenged the award on the ground that the deceased travelled in a goods transport vehicle as a passenger and hence his risk will not be covered under the terms of the policy.

Justice Durga Prasad held that tenor of cross-examination of the father by the counsel of the company would give an inference that the company did not dispute that deceased’s family owned the harvest which was being carried by the deceased for harvesting before accident.

The judge said “It is clear that the deceased travelled on the paddy harvester as its owner. Since the towing van was towing the harvester at the time of accident. The deceased can be referred as owner of the goods with reference to crime van also." Maintaining that policy copy would show that owner of the van paid premium to give coverage to non-paid passengers, the judge ruled that the Tribunal rightly held that the deceased was owner of the goods but not as passenger.