CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.4245 OF 2010 :{ 1 }: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH DATE OF DECISION: MARCH 29 ,2011 Reliance General Insurance Company Limited, New Delhi .....Petitioner VERSUS Vats Tour & Travel Pvt. Ltd., Gurgaon and another ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? PRESENT: Mr. Subhash Goyal, Advocate, for the petitioner. None for the respondents. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. Reliance General Insurance Company Limited through its Divisional Manager has filed this writ petition to impugn the award passed by Lok Adalat (Public Utility Services), Gurgaon. Respondent-Vats Tour & Travel Pvt. Ltd., Gurgaon had got its Chevrolet vehicle insured with the petitioner-Company for a period ending on 24.3.2009. The insurance cover was for `6,64,755/- IDV. The vehicle was stolen on 10.5.2008 while in custody of Sushil Kumar. The vehicle was parked duly locked along the road side. CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.4245 OF 2010 :{ 2 }: When said Sushil Kumar had gone to answer the call of nature, he found the vehicle stolen. He reported the matter to the police on the same day but the same was put off on the pretext to search the vehicle at his level. The petitioner-Company was also informed through its agent on telephone. The respondent-Company continued to search for the vehicle and ultimately registered an FIR on 12.5.2008 at Police Station, Sector 40, Gurgaon. Once the petitioner- Company failed to pay the insurance claim, they filed a petition, which was taken up by Lok Adalat at pre-litigation stage. As per the petitioner, the vehicle was left unattended at the time of theft. It was left unlocked and the key was in the ignition slot. The vehicle had only a temporary registration number, when it was stolen. It is also pleaded that the driver was not in possession of driving licence for driving a commercial vehicle. The delay in lodging the FIR is also pleaded as a ground to repudiate the claim. The Lok Adalat found some negligence on the part of the Driver but was of the view that whole claim could not be repudiated on that ground, even if the Driver had left the key in ignition slot and accordingly has settled the claim at 75% of IDV. This was considered enough to cover the contributory negligence on the part of the driver. The delay was found immaterial. The vehicle certainly was not a commercial one to take into consideration that the driver was not having a licence to drive a commercial vehicle. It was a Chevrolet vehicle, for which the driver had a valid licence. Even otherwise, this has no relevance with the theft or the claim as made and accordingly was rightly ignored by the CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.4245 OF 2010 :{ 3 }: Lok Adalat. The impugned award, thus, does not suffer from any illegality, calling for interference in exercise of writ jurisdiction. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed. March 29,2011 (RANJIT SINGH ) khurmi JUDGE