Case: Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd Vs. Bhoop Singh &amp; Others

2. The appellant issued insurance policy, the Commercial Vehicle (Comprehensive) Policy for which it charged Rs 125 as premium towards third party risk, in terms of S.95(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939. The said vehicle later was transferred in the name of Respondents 2 and 3. The incident is said to have taken place onat about 10.15 a.m. When Respondent 4 was driving his motorcycle on Ring Road, when he reached hot mix plant a truck dashed against his motorcycle causing injury, for which he submitted his claim of rupees ten lakhs. The Tribunal awarded rupees one lakh sixty thousand and further recorded the following finding:"In the first instance I find that the policy appears to be a comprehensive policy as it is mentioned at the top of this document .... Under the circumstances, I hold that the Insurance Company has not produced the insurance policy in accordance with the law and so I hold that the Insurance Company is liable to pay the entire amount of compensation to the petitioner under the law and it cannot be said that the liability of the Insurance Company is limited up to Rs 50,000 only."3. Aggrieved by this, the appellant filed an appeal before the High Court. The High Court also dismissed the appeal by holding that the policy was a comprehensive policy and the liability of the Insurance Company was unlimited. The reason for disbelieving the appellant was that the copy which was produced was held not to be the carbon copy of the policy as it was signed by one Mr K.K. Anand, ADM. The Court records on the basis of his personal knowledge that there is no ADM by that name in Delhi and even if there was any, he knows that none worked as Branch Manager of this Insurance Company. Hence, the Court disbelieved the carbon copy and held that the insurance policy was comprehensive and the appellants liability was unlimited.

Court's reasoning:
The submission is, the courts below rightly held based on this that the liability is unlimited.5. Firstly, we find the High Court fell into error in recording his finding for disbelieving the copy based onhis own personal knowledge, which cannot be sustained. We also scrutinised the said copy filed by the appellant. The reliance on the other hand for disbelieving this is based on the annexure of his own application datedcopy of which is placed before us by the learned counsel. Through this he tried to show that the number of the policy in question referred to in this annexure is different from the number which is recorded in the copy produced by the appellant. This annexure which has been placed before us, is not to be found on the record of this case. Learned counsel could not show that the said annexure was ever placed on the record of this case. On this no reliance could befind the aforesaid witness was not cross examined on this point. Hence for all these reasons the submission that the insurance premium paid was over and above Rs 125 by the figure of Rs 240 cannot be accepted. For this there is no other evidence. Accordingly, we find that the finding recorded by both the courts i.e. the Tribunal and the High Court is unsustainable, as it was based on conjectures and surmises. Firstly, the original of the policy is with the insured which has not been produced and the copy produced by the appellant could not have been disbelieved on the basis of the personal knowledge of the Court that there is no ADM and because in the carbon copy there were writings by pen.So, there is nothing on the record to show that insurance policy to the third party was for covering unlimited liability.9. In view of this, we find that this appeal has merit.