- (1.) THIS is plaintiff's second appeal whose suit for the recovery of Rs. 20,000 against the Life Insurance Corporation of India was decreed by the trial court but has been dismissed in appeal.
(2.) THE facts, in brief, are that on August 10, 1962, Sampuran Singh, husband of the plaintiff, Balwant Kaur, got himself insured for a sum of Rs. 20,000 under policy No. 6581182. He died on June 18, 1968, and the plaintiff being his nominee filed the present suit for the recovery of the said amount as the Life Insurance Corporation refused to honour the policy and repudiated it on the ground that answers to questions Nos. 8 and 9 of the proposal form (exhibit D1) had not been correctly answered by the insured. According to the plaintiff, the policy in question was a legal and a valid contract between the parties and so far as questions Nos. 8 and 9 were concerned, it was pleaded that there was no deliberate or fraudulent mis-statement by the policy-holder inasmuch as the proposal form was in English and it had been filled in by the agent, and the policy-holder did not understand it being illiterate. The facts mentioned under questions Nos. 8 and 9 were said to be non-material or unlikely so as to entitle the Life Insurance Corporation to repudiate their liability under the policy in dispute. The suit was contested on the ground that Dwarka Dass Mahajan had no authority to file the suit under the power of attorney which had not been properly executed or attested. The liability under the policy in question was denied on the ground that it had been obtained by suppression of material facts and by making untrue and fraudulent proposal, and, consequently, the contract of insurance was void ab initio. The trial court found that Shri Dwarka Dass Mahajan was duly authorised to file the suit and verify the plaint. It was further held that Sampuran Singh, deceased, had made no fraudulent statements in the proposal and they were not proved to be material, and, consequently, the Life Insurance Corporation was liable for the payment in question. In view of these findings, the suit for the recovery of Rs. 20,000 was decreed. In appeal, the learned Additional District Judge reversed the said findings of the trial court and came to the conclusion that the suit had been filed by the plaintiff not through her duly authorised agent nor had the plaint been properly verified, i. e. , not by either of the two. It was further found that the policy in question was not a valid contract as the insured, Sampuran Singh, suppressed material facts by not answering questions Nos. 8 and 9 in the proposal form. In view of this finding, the suit was dismissed. Dissatisfied with it, the plaintiff has come up in second appeal.
(3.) THE learned counsel for the appellant contended that questions Nos. 8 and 9 in the proposal form (exhibit D1) were not at all material and the question of their suppression as such did not arise. In any case, argued the learned counsel, the insured, Sampuran Singh, was illiterate, and the proposal form being in English, was filled in by an officer of the Life Insurance Corporation itself in the presence of one Tilak Raj who, according to the Life Insurance Corporation, had made Sampuran Singh, the deceased, understand the questions. The said Tilak Raj has not been produced by the Life Insurance Corporation, and, therefore, the finding arrived at by the lower appellate court on this issue was wrong, illegal and based on surmises and conjectures. It was further contended that the previous policy had lapsed and when an application for its revival was made, it was never rejected on any medical ground. Moreover, it was for the Life Insurance Corporation to prove on which ground the said policy had not been revived. Since no evidence was produced by the Life Insurance Corporation in that behalf, it could not be held that there was any suppression of material facts so as to render the policy invalid.;