LIFE INSURANCE CORPORATION OF INDIA Vs. SATYA DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal is directed against the order dated 10.9.2004 passed by District Forum, Hamirpur in Consumer Complaint No. 205/2003. Insured Rajinder Verma was covered in terms of the Policy, Annexure R.1. He died subsequent thereto on 28.11.2001. Respondent lodged claim with the appellants for payment of the sum insured. It was repudiated by the appellants on the ground that the deceased had obtained the policy by suppression as well as by withholding of material facts fraudulently. Therefore, policy stood vitiated and respondent was not entitled to claim any amount. After hearing the parties, District Forum below held the appellants to be deficient in service and directed them to pay Rs. 50,000 with 9% interest from the date of filing of the complaint i.e. 12.6.2003, till final payment along with benefits accrued on the insurance. Rs.2,000 was allowed as compensation for harassment, besides Rs. 500 as costs of litigation.

(2.) AT the time of hearing of this appeal, learned Counsel for the appellants urged that contract of insurance is based on utmost good faith and bona fide. He also invoked the doctrine of uberrima fides under the Insurance Act. Since the deceased had withheld the material information regarding his state of health by not stating that he was suffering from Tuberculosis (T.B.), therefore, contract of insurance became void. We may clarify and observe that if this is the correct factual position and is established on record by the appellants, there is no escape but for allowing this appeal. However, in order to succeed it was incumbent upon the appellants to have produced reliable, cogent as well as acceptable evidence on record to show that the deceased was aware regarding his suffering from Tuberculosis and in spite of such knowledge he either withheld or mis -stated this fact fraudulently by answering Cols. 10 and 11 of the proposal form incorrectly. With the assistance of the learned Counsel for the appellants, we have gone through the file of the complaint before the Forum below. Except for the pleadings, learned Counsel was not in a position to point out in the shape of either medical certificate or affidavit of the doctor who attended upon the deceased to show that he was suffering from T.B. on the date when proposal form was filled in. In case such doctor refused to file affidavit, nothing prevented the appellants to have summoned him through process of the District Forum below under Section 13 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986.

(3.) FACED with this situation, learned Counsel for the appellants submitted that in the peculiar circumstances of this case, it needs to be remanded for further inquiry by the District Forum below. Remand cannot be ordered either as a matter of course or in routine. A case has to be made out which may compel the Appellate Court to order remand. At the same time, remand cannot be claimed to fill in lacuna left in the original trial by litigants like the appellants in the present appeal. Therefore, this plea has been simply raised to be rejected.