New India Assurance Company Ltd vs JASPAL SINGH

1.1. THE respondent in this revision petition was the complainant before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Gurdaspur (in short, ''the District Forum''). He alleged deficiency in service on the part of the New India Assurance Company Limited, Branch Office Jalandhar (hereafter, ''the insurance company''), which was the opposite party before the District Forum. THE complainant''s case was that his car, insured with the opposite party/insurance company for Rs.96,000/- for the period 19.10.2002-18.10.2003, met with an accident on 31.05.2003. THE accident was reported to the police and a claim was lodged with the insurance company for Rs.96,000/- on total loss basis. THE insurance company appointed a spot surveyor as well as a final surveyor, both of whom pointed out that the car had been fitted with a kit for use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as an alternative fuel. THE car was registered with the registering authority as a petrol driven Maruti 800 vehicle, with no provision for dual fuel use. THE Insurance Company, accordingly, repudiated the claim under its letter dated 25.11.2003 for violation of conditions of the policy.

AGGRIEVED by this, the complainant filed a consumer complaint with the District Forum.

ON consideration of pleadings and evidence, the District Forum held that the complainant was entitled to indemnification of his loss and directed the Insurance Company to pay Rs.95,500/- along with interest @ 6% per annum from 25.11.2003 till payment, within one month from the date of return of salvage. The Insurance Company was also directed to pay cost of Rs.500/-.

AGAINST this order, the opposite party/insurance company went in appeal before the Punjab State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Chandigarh (in short, ''the State Commission''). By its order dated 28.08.2006 the State Commission dismissed the appeal in limine. It is against this order of the State Commission that the insurance company has filed this revision petition.

WE have heard Ms. Sakshi Gupta and Mr. Ravinder Zadoo on behalf of petitioner and respondent respectively and considered the documents brought on record. Learned counsel for the petitioner has also submitted written arguments, which we have considered.

IT is an admitted position that the insured car had been fitted with an LPG kit and that the spot surveyor found an LPG cylinder found in the boot of the car on the day after accident. It is also not disputed that the use of LPG as an alternative fuel in the car was not permitted as per the registration certificate of the car and hence amounted to violation of the provisions of section 52(1) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. However, what the insurance company did not conclusively establish before the District Forum is whether at the time of the accident the car was actually being run on petrol or LPG. All that the spot surveyor averred in his affidavit dated 26.07.2004 is that during his survey he "found LPG gas system fitted in the car". Thus the insurance company took a hyper technical view of the matter in repudiating the claim for a totally damaged car which was insured for a rather small amount. The violation of the above mentioned provision of the Motor Vehicles Act is not, in our view, so ruinous as to render the insurance claim totally invalid. Moreover, the amount insured is small and the claim payable according to the final surveyor''s report would be even less. The final surveyor had assessed the loss at the insured sum less Rs.500/-, i.e., Rs.95,500/- and estimated the value of the salvage at Rs. 38,000/- at that point of time (2003), with the observation that this would go down with the passage of time. After the passage of nearly nine years since the accident, the salvage value of the damaged car could not be more than Rs.15,000/-, in our opinion.

CONSIDERING these extenuating circumstances, we are inclined to direct the insurance company to pay to the insured a sum of Rs.70,000/- on non-standard basis without prejudice to the validity of its legal contentions. The payment may be made within four weeks of the date of this order. The parties are left to bear their own costs.

THE revision petition is disposed of in the above terms.