SITA RAM Vs. NEW INDIA INSURANCE COMPANY LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) -CHALLENGE in this revision petition is to the order of the State Commission which dismissed the appeal filed by the petitioners. The petitioners were the complainants before the District Forum. They had got their household goods along with the jewellery insured with New India Insurance Company for the period from 12. 3. 2004 to 11. 3. 2005. Mrs. and Mr. Ratan Lal went to Delhi to attend some family function had carried with them their jewellery. They went to the house of their son-in-law Mr. Deepak Gupta and daughter Diksha Gupta at Pitampura, Delhi. After the dinner they went to stay for a night in a guest house at Vidya Vihar after leaving the jewellery with their daughter considering it to be safe to keep the jewellery at their house rather than in the guest house.

(2.) ON the intervening night of 14/15. 10. 2004 the servant of Mrs. and Mr. Deepak Gupta drugged them and decamped with jewellery pertaining to the appellants as well as Diksha Gupta which were kept in the locker of the almirah of Diksha Gupta. An FIR was lodged and the statements of Deepak and Diksha Gupta recorded on 17. 10. 2004 and 19. 10. 2004 respectively. On intimation about the loss of jewellery the New India Insurance Company appointed M/s. Lokendra Claims Care Corporation as Surveyor. The claim was repudiated by the Insurance Company on 22. 3. 2006. Alleging deficiency in service a complaint was filed before the District Forum-I, Union Territory Chandigarh.

(3.) THE case was contested by the Insurance Company that there is no proof that Mr. and Mrs. Rattan Lal had taken jewellery from Chandigarh and if they had taken and had lost the same, the same would have been mentioned in the FIR registered at the instance of Shri Deepak Gupta. The claim was also repudiated because theft by a domestic servant was excluded from the policy. The District Forum dismissed the complaint on 22. 11. 2007.