IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH FAO No.1678 of 2005 (O&M) Date of decision:01.10.2010 United India Insurance Company Limited ....Appellant versus Deep Chand and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Neeraj Khanna, Advocate, for Mr. Ravinder Arora, Advocate, for the appellant. None for the respondents. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? ---- K.Kannan, J.(Oral) 1. The Insurance Company is in appeal challenging the award on the ground that at the relevant time when the policy of insurance had been issued, the owner of the vehicle had already died. The contention therefore was that the policy was in respect of an insured, who was dead and void ab initio. 2. The claimants were third parties to the vehicle and they had filed a case against the registered owner of the vehicle which was involved in the accident and its insurer. It is not the plea by the Insurance Company that the vehicle was not involved or the person named as the insured was not the owner or that there was no policy of insurance. It appears that the Court's summons had been alleged to have FAO No.1678 of 2005 (O&M) - 2 - been received and a statement had been filed by the counsel on behalf of the person named as the owner, first respondent. However, the verification of the first respondent was not there and the counsel himself had verified the statement. The Insurance Company sought to prove at the trial that the insured had died even on 25.06.2001 when the policy had commenced subsequently on 20.09.2001. Curiously, in this case, even a proposal form had been filed by the Insurance Company that showed that the proposal for insurance had been submitted on 20.09.2001 in the name of the deceased and accepted by the insurer. A third party who lodges a claim before the Tribunal giving the vehicular particulars as available and the Insurance Company which wants to deny liability on the ground that the insured had died even prior to the policy, it has to establish the same. In this case, an insurer that has accepted a proposal on 20.09.2001 and issued a policy cannot argue that the insured had died even prior to the policy. If it had produced such a death certificate, I would take the death certificate not to contain the true particulars. It shall not again lie in the mouth of the Insurance Company to deny the validity of the policy when it had issued a policy in the name of a person after securing a proposal. I would take the defence of the Insurance Company to be irresponsible and the appeal shall be treated as such. The award of the Tribunal is confirmed and the appeal is dismissed. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 01.10.2010 sanjeev