Mumbai: The Motor Vehicles Claims Tribunal has ordered the owner of an auto and an insurance company to pay Rs9.66 lakh to the family of a labourer who succumbed to head injuries following a road accident in 2015.
The tribunal also imposed a 7.5 per cent yearly interest from 2015, when the application was filed before it.
Bhaskar Barfe was 45 when he died in November 2015 in an accident with an auto-rickshaw while he was crossing the road. In the application before the tribunal, his widowed wife and daughter had claimed that the accident had taken place due to rash and negligent driving of the auto. They had also presented the FIR and inquest panchnama to support their claims.
The insurance company had told the tribunal that the vehicle was not carrying a valid permit at the time of the accident and that its permit had expired in December 2009. It further said that the driver did not possess a valid and effective driving license. It stated that the owner had thus committed a breach of its policies.
The tribunal ordered that as held by the apex court the insurance company must firstly pay the compensation and can then recover it from the owner.
