IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH FAO No.3487 of 2002 Date of decision:24.08.2010 Oriental Insurance Company Limited ....Appellant versus Parveen and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Ashwani Talwar, Advocate, for the appellant. Mr. Pankaj Sharma, Advocate, for respondents 7 and 8. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? Yes. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? Yes. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? Yes. ---- K.Kannan, J. (Oral) 1. The Insurance Company is in appeal on the question of quantum. The learned counsel for the insurer would also rely on an application for reception of additional evidence to urge that the claimants had falsely given evidence relating to the income status of the deceased person and that the investigations have revealed that the deceased person was not impleaded in the manner suggested in the petition and in respect of which evidence was given. I am afraid, I cannot allow for any such evidence to be brought on record for the first time here before the Appellate Court. The learned counsel would rely to the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in United India Insurance Company Limited Versus Bushan Sachdeva-(2002) 2 SCC 265 that holds that the FAO No.3487 of 2002 - 2 - Insurance Companies make do with public monies and, therefore, it should be taken as an aggrieved person relating to a compensation. The Hon'ble Supreme Court had in that case states thus, “The permissible contours of the involvement of the insurance company in the claims preferred before the Accidents Tribunals can be discerned from Section 168 of the MV Act. The nationalised insurance Companies in India are holding public money. What they have to deal with its public fund. They are accountable to the public for every pie of it. If it is held that no insurance company should feel aggrieved even if the award is seemingly unjust and that such awarded amount should go out of the public fund, it is public interest which suffers. If the insurance company has reason to believe that the award was obtained fraudulently which fact was not known to the insured, the insurance company must feel aggrieved. Any interpretation denying such aggrieved insurance companies the opportunity to seek the legal remedy of appeal should not be adopted unless there is a statutory compulsion. There is nothing in Section 173 or in the other relevant provisions of the Act which debars the insurance company from resorting to the remedy of appeal when it knows that the award is unjust.” 2. The permissible contours, that the Hon'ble Supreme Court was adverting to, were to arise in two eventualities: (i) when there was a collusion between the claimants and the insured; and (ii) when the insurer failed to contest the case. These are precisely the grounds which are also available under Section 170 where under any of the circumstances justifying the insurer to contest the case on all grounds, it should urge these two pleas and seek permission to contest under Section 170. If 170 permission had not been taken, the insurer cannot assume an FAO No.3487 of 2002 - 3 - omnibus concern that public monies have to be protected and, therefore, it should have a right of appeal on quantum also. That would mean rewriting the Act itself. If there was a case of fraud in securing the award that will be still a quite different matter. Fraud vitiates all proceedings and it may exist even outside the sphere of what Section 170 addresses. If a plea of fraud is not made in securing the award, a false evidence may not mean at all times fraud. The falsity or otherwise of the contentions ought to be best tested only on the turf of a trial Court and not at an appellate forum. The appeal is, therefore, not maintainable and it is dismissed as such. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 24.08.2010 sanjeev