Non-possession of driving license at the fatal point of time is not fatal to claim of full insurance compensation from the insurance company, Madras High Court observed this while hearing the case of Krishnaveni and another vs. Manokaran and others.
Insurance company paid only half of the amount of Rs 6,48,000 assessed as dependency loss on the ground that there was contributory negligence on the part of the deceased, in that he was not in possession of driving license at the fatal point of time.
The HC dismissed this stand of the insurance company saying that non-possession of driving license can by no stretch of imagination be said to have contributed to the accident and the resulted death.
While traffic enforcement authorities can penalize a driver for non-possession of driving license, the insurer cannot, unless it can prove that the deceased did not have a valid driving license at all at the fatal point of time. In other words, if the driving license was left at the place of work or residence or anywhere else, such a lapse is not fatal to entertainment of full insurance compensation and the insurance company cannot wriggle out by adducing contributory negligence as the reason for halving the compensation amount.vinay mohanty
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