C.W.P. No.4320 of 2010 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P. No.4320 of 2010 Date of Decision.13.10.2011 Reliance General Insurance Company Limited, 2nd Floor, 60 Okhla Industrial Area Estate, Phase III, New Delhi through Sh. Ranjan Sinha, Manager .....Petitioner Versus Balkrishan son of Sh. Prabhu Dayal r/o H.No.480/21, Om Nagar, Gali No.9, Gurgaon and another .....Respondents Present: Mr. Subhash Goyal, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Jitender Chauhan, Advocate for Mr. R.S. Chokar, Advocate for respondent No.1. CORAM:HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? No 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? No -.- K. KANNAN J.(ORAL) 1. The insurance company challenges the order passed by the Permanent Lok Adalat admitting the claim of owner of a Qualis vehicle, who had claimed the sum assured for alleged theft of the vehicle. The insurance company pleaded in defence that the condition in policy that the criminal complaint must be immediately lodged had not been followed and in this case FIR had been lodged after 10 days and the insurance company was also informed about loss of the vehicle nearly 82 days of the alleged theft. It was also contended that the petitioner had not been careful in keeping custody of the vehicle and he had left the C.W.P. No.4320 of 2010 -2- vehicle unattended and that was the cause for the loss. 2. I would not find the aspect of not lodging the FIR immediately as constituting any violation of terms of the policy. The reference to an immediate lodging of complaint with the police, I would not take it to be not a condition for the policy for an insurance company to plead that non-compliance of such an act would result in absolving the liability of the insurance company. I would take it as merely an instruction for appropriate conduct of the owner to ensure that no fraudulent claims are made. Again the issue of the vehicle being left unattended is meaningless when we discuss the issue of loss of the vehicle. A vehicle is not lost by an owner sitting in the vehicle. It invariably occurs only in the absence of the person, who was otherwise attending to the vehicle and if theft had taken place, I would take the said fact itself as a ground available for a claimant to make the insurer liable. The issue of an indiscreet conduct of leaving the vehicle unattended ought not to be taken again as a ground for absolving the liability of the insurance company. So long as the theft of the vehicle itself is not a fabricated one and the Permanent Lok Adalat has found that the theft had been established, the liability cast on the insurance company was justified and I would not find any reason to interfere wit the same. 3. The award is confirmed and the writ petition is dismissed. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE September 13, 2011 Pankaj*