SC verdict in insurance case

By T. Padmanabha Rao

NEW DELHI, AUG. 6. The Supreme Court, interpreting the words - ``unlimited personal injury and property damage'' upto Rs. 10 lakhs for which premium of Rs. 134 was paid as recorded in the insurance policy - has held that these words covered the ``death and the bodily injury of the insured'' (a truck driver, since deceased).

The bench, comprising Mr. Justice A.P. Misra and Mrs. Justice Ruma Pal, set aside a judgment of the Bombay High Court (HC) which said that the words ``unlimited personal'' in the policy (taken from a insurance company - the respondent) qualified the word unlimited for death and injury of a third party and did not cover the insured persons personally.

The bench, on the facts and circumstances of the case, allowed an appeal from the parents of the deceased truck driver (appellants) against the HC judgment.

The SC restored the judgment of the trial court, which, on considering the submissions of both parties, held that the payment of Rs. 134 as premium was ``for the unlimited personal injury to the life of the insured as well as to the property to the tune of Rs. 10 lakhs''.

The trial court (in concluding in favour of the claim of appellants) also found that there was ``no iota of evidence to prove that the contents as against premium at Rs. 134 as unlimited personal injury and damages to be Rs. 10 lakhs has been wrongly or mistakenly shown in that policy.''

The bench noted that when the plea of the insurance company in the `written statement' was that the words ``unlimited personal injury were typed in the insurance policy due to oversight/mistake'', the contention that the words were limited to the liability to a ``third party'' could not be sustained.

The HC, in reaching a contrary conclusion, felt that ``since it was a legal matter it could be adjudicated notwithstanding a different stand in pleading'', the bench said. Observing that ``this approach of the HC was not proper'', it noted ``once a stand `in fact' is taken, `that fact' could not be controverted by any proposition''.

``In the present case, the insurance company had not led any evidence to dissolve the stand taken by it in the `written statement' that it was done by mistake nor there was any application to amend such pleadings,'' the Bench said and added ``in view of this, the HC was not correct to decide the issue through legal inferences dehorse of and without adverting to the glaring facts on the record.''

In the end, the bench directed that in case the appellants made an application to the competent court for executing the decree, as passed by the trial court (and as confirmed by the SC), the `Executing Court' would consider it expeditiously.

The trial court decreed the suit for a sum of Rs. 6,03,000 payable by the insurance company to the appellants along with interest at the rate of 12 per cent per annum from a specified date. The driver was killed in an accident involving the truck which was insured under the insurance policy taken from the respondent.

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