1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE OF BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD FIRST APPEAL NO.546 OF 2010 and FIRST APPEAL NO.547 OF 2010 1) Ravindra Gangadhar Karpe and another. - APPELLANTS VERSUS 1) Irfan Haroon Khan & Anr. - RESPONDENTS ***** Mr.VS Bedre, Advocate for Appellants; Mr.AS Usmanpurkar,Advocate for Resp.No.2. ----- CORAM : K.U.CHANDIWAL, J. DATE : 23rd April, 2010. PER COURT : 1) Heard Mr.Bedre for the appellants/claimants and Mr.Usmanpurkar for the Respondent No.2/insurance company. Both the appeals arise out of the same controversy, accident, they are heard together finally. Admit. 2) In an unfortunate accident, 5 years and 7 years daughters of the claimants lost their 2 precious lives, having met with an accident with the truck bearing Registration No.MH-04-H-1272, which rammed by breaking the divider to the TATA SUMO jeep in which the family members of the claimants with the deceased were travelling. During the course of evidence, the learned Judge found, the driver was not having a valid license. Before the learned Judge, the insurance company had specific defence that there was breach of insurance policy of the offending motor truck as at the time when the accident has occurred on 17.6.1997, driver of the offending vehicle had no valid and effective driving license issued by RTO though the license of heavy motor goods vehicle is issued on 4.8.1999. This fact having been established, the learned Judge negated the contentions of the claimants to fasten the liability against the insurance company. 3) The question posed by Mr. Bedre, about exonerating the insurance company, has been dealt with by the Apex Court in the matter of National Insurance Company Ltd. Vs. Kaushalya Devi and Ors. (2008 ACJ 2144) in SLP (C) No.10694/2006, the Apex Court confirmed the findings of the High Court and held that the owner alone was liable to pay compensation to Respondent No.1 of the said case for causing death of her son by rash and negligent driving on the part of the driver of 3 the truck. In this situation, since the driver had no valid license to ply the vehicle at the material time, the liability was rightly not fastened against the insurance company. No merit in the First Appeals, they are dismissed. No costs. (K.U.CHANDIWAL) JUDGE bdv/fa546.10