C.W.P. No. 15313 of 2009 -1 - IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. DATE OF DECISION: October 6, 2009. Parties Name New India Assurance Company Limited ...PETITIONER VERSUS Neelam Devi and others ...RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASBIR SINGH PRESENT: Mrs. Veena Ashwani Talwar, Advocate, for the petitioner. JASBIR SINGH, J. ORDER: This order will dispose of three civil writ petitions bearing No. 15313, 15309 and 15312, all of the year 2009, as common question of law and facts is involved in all these cases. For facility of dictating order, facts are being taken from CWP No. 15313 of 2009. This writ petition has been filed by the New India Assurance Company Ltd., against an award dated July 07, 2009 (Annexure P-1), passed by the Permanent Lok Adalat (Public Utility Services), Gurgaon, ( in short Lok Adalat) awarding compensation of Rs. 1,00,000/- to the claimants( respondents No. 1 and 2 in this petition) under “Devi Rakshak Yojna Insurance Scheme” (in short the Scheme), on account of death of Rakesh Kumar( husband of respondent No. 1 and son of respondent No. 2), C.W.P. No. 15313 of 2009 -2 - in a road accident on November 10, 2004. The deceased was 22 years of age at the time of death. Counsel for the petitioner heard. It is apparent from the records that the Haryana Government launched a Scheme, which envisages payment of compensation to all bread earners of all the families in the State of Haryana, in case a bread earner suffers death or permanent total disability due to rail, road or air accident and riots, strike etc. Detail of the circumstances, in which compensation will be payable, has been given in para No. 2 of the Memorandum of Understanding entered into between the Government of Haryana and the petitioner (Annexure P-4). In the Scheme it is provided that the petitioner -Insurance Company shall disburse amount of compensation to the family of the deceased within 72 hours after the death. Rakesh Kumar, husband of respondent No. 1 and son of respondent No. 2, died in a road accident on November 10, 2004. FIR No. 147 was recorded on November 10, 2004, in Police Station Pataudi, regarding the above said accident. Despite intimation, when compensation was not paid, respondents No. 1 and 2 approached the Lok Adalat for claiming the requisite relief. Upon notice, petitioner put in appearance and took up a plea that only a head of the family, as on the date of issue of the policy, was covered under the Scheme. It was further objected that as the deceased was not head of the family, so compensation was not payable to his dependents. Above said argument has again been reiterated before this Court, today, at the time of arguments. This Court feels that the argument is not tenable and deserves rejection. The Lok Adalat, while rejecting objection, raised by the C.W.P. No. 15313 of 2009 -3 - Insurance Company, has observed as under: “The repudiation of the claim has been made on the ground that the deceased was not the head of the family at the time of the commencement of policy and so the claim was not maintainable. The name of the deceased appeared in the Ration Card with his father and other members of the family and as such he was not the head of the family in the year prior to 2002. But his parents separated in the year 2002 and so he became the head of his family. He was the bread earner of the family. He was young man of 22 years of age. It is not correct that only the head of the family was covered under the policy. The relevant clause of the MOU reads as follows: (i)Insured/ Beneficiary: It has been decided to continue the scheme to all the bread earners of all the families in Haryana whose names appear in the voter list of Haryana or Ration Card issued by concerned Department of Haryana except Govt. employees and Income Tax payees. In order to clarify the situation. It is further stated that if there are more than one bread earner in a family, in that case only one bread earner will be covered under the scheme. Accident resulting in death/ permanent disability met to the insured beneficiaries even outside Haryana is also covered under the Scheme. So, the words 'Head of family' finds no mention in the MOU and it has been clearly mentioned therein that even if there are more than one bread earner in a family, only one bread earner C.W.P. No. 15313 of 2009 -4 - will be covered under the scheme. The Haryana Government paid the premium not for itself but for the bread earners mentioned in the MOU who became the beneficiary under the scheme and so they can lay the claim under the policy. So the objection regarding lack of privity of contract is without any basis. The Insurance Company has its office at Gurgaon and so the claim petition has been filed at Gurgaon. The other preliminary objections are not worth of any consideration. As regards the question of limitation the repudiation letter could not be placed on record. However, it is gathered from some other documents on the file that it was issued on 28.06.2005. This petition was filed on 08.07.2008, i.e., after three years and ten days. No evidence could be led as to when the service of repudiation letter was effected upon the applicant. The period of limitation of three years could start from the date of service so the respondent has not been able to establish that the application is time barred. The applicants filed application earlier in the District Consumer Forum but it was withdrawn from there and was filed in this Adalat on 08.07.2008. Even if the period spent in the consumer forum is not excluded, still the application is not time barred. Moreover, it was held in III (2007) CPJ 42 Kalpana Aggarwal Vs. LIC of India, that the genuine claim of consumer ought not to be defeated on technical ground of limitation when the payment is C.W.P. No. 15313 of 2009 -5 - required to be made by the Govt. owned company (LIC). The LIC was held liable to pay the amount. In para 3 of the judgment it was observed that even otherwise the respondent LIC is a Govt. owned company and was not expected to set up the plea of limitation against its own consumers (AIR 1990 SC 313 and Division Bench decision of High Court of Madhya Pradesh 1990 JLJ 315 were relied upon.” The opinion given by the Lok Adalat, regarding filing the claim application within limitation, is perfectly justified. The petitioner has failed to bring on record the date on which notice was served upon the person concerned regarding repudiation/ cancellation of the insurance policy in question. This Court is also of the opinion that the finding given above is perfectly justified. In MOU, as has been noted above, there is no provision stating that compensation shall be payable only on account of death of head of the family. Rather it is mentioned that the benefit under the Scheme shall be available to all the bread earners, of all the families, in the State of Haryana, whose name appear in the voters' list of the State or in ration card issued by the concerned Department of the State of Haryana except Government employees and the Income-tax payees. This Court is of the view that the private respondents were entitled to get compensation under the scheme, which has rightly been granted to them by the Lok Adalat. Exactly, a similar controversy came up before this Court in C.W.P. No. 13979 of 2007 (New India Assurance Company Ltd. v. Raj Bala and C.W.P. No. 15313 of 2009 -6 - another), decided on April 4, 2008, and a Division Bench of this Court held that once name of the deceased appeared in the ration card, then the dependent family member are entitled to get compensation under the scheme. No other point was argued. Consequently, the writ petitions fail and the same are dismissed. October 06, 2009. ( Jasbir Singh ) DKC Judge