LIFE INSURANCE CORPORATION OF INDIA vs T. Usha Pant

WE have heard learned Shri S.P. Mittal, Advocate for the petitioner/opposite party Insurance Co. and Shri S.P. Sharma, Advocate for the respondent/complainant.

BRIEFLY stated, the husband of the complainant, namely, Shri Ranjan Pant had purchased an insurance policy in October, 1999 from the petitioner Insurance Co. Complainant who is the widow of the insured Shri Ranjan Pant, is the nominee and the beneficiary under the policy. After issuance of the policy, the insured died during 11.10.2000 to 15.10.2000, the information of which was given to Patti Patwari Reshil on the basis of which a case was registered under section 302 of I.P.C. Patti Patwari presented his final report after the investigation of the case. In the postmortem carried out at the Government Hospital, Haldwani it was found that the cause of the death of the deceased was Asphyxia due to throttling with injury marks on the body. The claim filed by the complainant before the petitioner/opposite party Insurance Co. was rejected by the Insurance Co. vide its letter dated 15.3.2002. A consumer complaint was, therefore, filed by the complainant alleging deficiency in service on the part of the petitioner Co. Petitioners contested the consumer complaint.

CONCLUDING that the insured person was murdered and that no relationship could be established between the cause of his death and the disease suffered, the District Forum vide its order dated 25.11.2004, partly allowed the complaint in terms of the following directions: - "The opposite party is ordered to pay the life insurance sum Rs. 1,00,000/ - (One lac only) and the accident benefit on it as per rules, within a period of one month. Beside this the Opposite party is also ordered to pay a sum of Rs. 5,000/ - (Rupees Five Thousand only) as mental agony and Rs. 1,500/ - (Rupees One thousand Five Hundred Only) as litigation expenses. In case of non -compliance of the order within the specified period, the opposite party shall also pay interest @ 9% (nine per cent) p.a. from the date of instituting the complaint till the date of the actual realization of the entire amount."

AGGRIEVED of the aforesaid order of the District Forum, the petitioner Insurance Co. filed appeal No. 613 of 2004 before the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Uttranchal, Dehradoon which partially accepted the appeal by holding that the complainant/respondent is not entitled to receive both interest and compensation for mental agony. The State Commission, therefore, vide its impugned order dated 3.5.2006 passed in appeal No. 613 of 2004, set aside the relief in respect of compensation for mental agony and modified the order of the District Forum to that extent. Rest of the order of the District Forum was upheld. Now the preset revision petition has been filed by the opposite party Insurance Co. being aggrieved of the impugned order of the State Commission.

LIFE insured had died in the year 2000 and the consumer complaint was filed in 2002. Now more than 13 years have lapsed and a meager amount of Rs. 1 lakh plus accident benefit as per rules with interest @ 9% and litigation expenses of Rs. 1500/ - only are involved in this litigation. Vide its order dated 13.11.2006, this Commission has already allowed the respondent/complainant (widow of the insured) to withdraw the amount of Rs. 50,000/ - which was to be deposited by the petitioner Insurance Co. as part of the conditional stay order passed by this Commission. Under these circumstances, we are not inclined to entertain this petition in view of decision of Hon''ble Apex Court in "Gurgaon Gramin Bank Vs. Khazani and another, IV : (2012) CPJ 5 (SC), where the Court observed thus: - "2. Number of litigations in our country is on the rise, for small and trivial matters, people and sometimes Central and State Governments and their instrumentalities Banks, nationalized or private, come to courts may be due to ego clash or to save the Officers'' skin. Judicial system is over -burdened, naturally causes delay in adjudication of disputes. Mediation centers opened in various parts of our country have, to some extent, cased the burden of the courts but we are still in the tunnel and the light is far away. On more than one occasion, this court has reminded the Central Government, State Governments and other instrumentalities as well as to the various banking institutions to take earnest efforts to resolve the disputes at their end. At times, some give and take attitude should be adopted or both will sink. Unless, serious questions of law of general importance arise for consideration or a question which affects large number of persons or the stakes are very high, Courts jurisdiction cannot be invoked for resolution of small and trivial matters. We are really disturbed by the manner in which those types of matters are being brought to courts even at the level of Supreme Court of India and this case falls in that category."

The Apex Court further held;

"10. The Chief Manager stated in the affidavit that no bill was raised by the counsel for the bank for conducting the matter before the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission. We have not been told how much money has been spent by the bank officers for their to and fro journeys to the lawyers'' office, to the District Forum, State Forum, National Commission and to the Supreme Court. For a paltry amount of Rs. 15000/ -, even according to the affidavit, bank has already spent a total amount of Rs. 12,950/ - leaving aside the time spent and other miscellaneous expenses spent by the officers of the bank for to and fro expenses etc. Further, it may be noted that the District Forum had awarded Rs. 3,000/ - towards cost of litigation and compensation for the harassment caused to Smt. Khazani. Adding this amount, the cost goes up to Rs. 15,950/ -. Remember, the buffalo had died 10 years back, but the litigation is not over, fight is still on for Rs. 15,000/ -.

Learned counsel appearing for the bank, Shri Amit Grover, submitted that though the amount involved is not very high but the claim was fake and on inspection by the insurance company, no tag was found on the dead body of the buffalo and hence the insurer was not bound to make good the loss, consequently the bank had to proceed against Smt. Khazani.

We are of the view that issues raised before us are purely questions of facts examined by the three forums including the National Disputes Redressal Commission and we fail to see what is the important question of law to be decided by the Supreme Court. In our view, these types of litigation should be discouraged and message should also go, otherwise for all trivial and silly matters people will rush to this court.

Gramin Bank like the appellant should stand for the benefit of the gramins who sometimes avail of loan for buying buffaloes, to purchase agricultural implements, manure, seeds and so on Repayment, to a large extent, depends upon the income which they get out of that Crop failure, due to drought or natural calamities, disease to cattle or their death may cause difficulties to gramins to repay the amount. Rather than coming to their rescue, banks often drive them to litigation leading them extreme penury. Assuming that the bank is right, but once an authority like District Forum takes a view, the bank should graciously accept it rather than going in for further litigation and even to the level of Supreme Court. Driving poor gramins to various litigative forums should be strongly deprecated because they have also to spend large amounts for conducting litigation. We condemn this type of practice, unless the stake is very high or the matter affects large number of persons or affects a general policy of the Bank which has far reaching consequences.

We, in this case, find no error in the decisions taken by all fact finding authorities including the National Disputes Redressal Commission. The appeal is accordingly dismissed with cost of Rs. 10,000/ - to be paid by the bank to the first respondent within a period of one month. Resultantly, the Bank now has to spend altogether Rs. 25,950/ - for a claim of Rs. 15,000/ -, apart from to and fro travelling expenses of the Bank officials. Let God save the Gramins."

THE aforesaid observations of the Hon''ble Supreme Court are fully applicable to the facts and circumstances of the present case. In the present case both the Fora below have returned their concurrent findings of fact against the petitioners. Since the parties are litigating for the last more than 13 years and the award involved is only of Rs. 1 lakh plus accident benefit as per rules along with 9% interest and cost of Rs. 1500/ - out of which, a sum of Rs. 50,000/ - has already been allowed to be withdrawn by the respondent/complainant, we are not inclined to entertain this petition. The question of law raised in this petition, if any, is left open to be decided in an appropriate case where the stakes are high.

WITH these observations, the present revision petition is disposed of with no order as to costs for this stage of litigation.