Per Hon’ble DR. S.K. Kakade, Presiding Member.
1) Being aggrieved by the order dated 08/01/2010 passed by learned Additional District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum Nagpur in Consumer Complaint No.CC/229/2009 partly allowing the said complaint directing the appellants to pay sum of Rs.2,50,000/- with interest @ 9% p.a. towards rejecting the claim by the appellant, the Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd., alongwith cost of Rs.2000/-. The appellant Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd. through its two offices at Pune and Nagpur filed this appeal before this Commission against the respondent Kiran Agencies from Nagpur, the original complainant.
2) Brief facts of this appeal are filed are as follows :-
The respondent in this appeal Kiran Agencies purchased policy from appellant namely ‘Money Insurance Policy’ by paying premium of Rs.6,348/- with policy No.OG-08-2101-4011-00000031 and the period of insurance policy was from 28/01/2008 to 27/01/2009. Being Money Insurance Policy this policy was for specifically taking care of loss of money/cash. According to the policy schedule Section i (c ) was covering cash loss upto Rs.5,00,000/- subject to clauses (1) Cash to be carried by authorized employees, (2) Excluding infidelity of cash carrying employees, (3) Exclusion of public transport and (4) Excluding intercity transits. One of the employee Shri Mangesh Markande went to Solapur, was having cash of Rs.2,50,000/- and stayed in hotel ‘Sanket’ Room No.205. While he was out of room for some work next day in the morning, he locked the room. After returning back he found theft of the bag in which cash was kept. He immediately filed complaint in the near by Police Station. Further the claim was lodged with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd., but the claim was repudiated by the insurance company for the reason that this theft was during ‘In transit’ and also the cash was not kept safely. Since there is breach of policy condition No.3.12 the claim was rejected by letter dated 25/11/2008. Aggrieved by this repudiation M/s.Kiran Agencies approached Additional District Consumer Forum Nagpur and filed complaint on 28/04/2009 being complaint No.229/2009. Learned Consumer Forum after going through all the documents and finally hearing the complaint, partly allowed this complaint directing the present appellant to pay Rs.2,50,000/- as a claim amount to the original complainant alongwith interest @ 9% p.a. from the date of 25/11/2008 failing which appellant will have to pay interest @ 12% p.a. Aggrieved by this order Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd. the original O.P. filed this appeal.
4) This appeal being very old, filed in the year 2010, priority was given and finally heard. After hearing the rival submissions of both the parties we went through the documents filed on record.
5) Learned advocate Mr.D.N.Kukade for the appellant submitted that the order passed by the learned Additional District Forum Nagpur is not just and legal. Learned Additional Consumer Forum has overlooked the policy condition specifically condition No.i (c) which speaks that :- “ Money other than described in A and B above to be paid by partner of the form of the authorized employee of the insured to various persons associated with the insured’s business in various cities/town of the Maharashtra to be carried in a briefcase by road by rail or Air by car/taxi/three wheeler/bus/train by fight for payment of compensation/expenses/hotel bill/taxi bill/air ticket/entertainment Rs.5,00,000/- estimated total amount of the money in transit per annum Rs.60,00,000/-”, that clearly says that the policy is not applicable for in transit cash loss. Further the cash was not placed safely in locker. Thus as there was a breach in the policy terms and conditions, the insurance company has rightly rejected the claim which the learned District Consumer Forum has not considered. Learned advocate for the appellant has filed an application for taking certain documents on record alongwith list of documents that consisted of proposal form dated 25/01/2008 and e-mail by the insurance company regarding decision on the proposal dated 19/02/2008. Since there was no objection from the learned advocate for respondent the said documents were taken on record for consideration. Learned advocate for the appellant prayed for setting aside the judgment and order passed by the learned District Consumer Forum Nagpur.
6) The learned advocate for the respondent opposed the submissions made by the advocate of appellant. He invited the attention of Bench to page No.35 of the appeal compilation which has policy document and definition of 2.10, 2.11 and 2.12 which defined “theft”, “authorized employee” and “in transit” respectively. According to learned advocate for respondent the theft was not during transit, the cash was with authorized employee and when theft occurred the same was in a bag that was kept in the room that was locked, hence the cash was kept in safe manner. All precautions were taken as prescribed in policy terms and conditions. Learned advocate prayed for dismissal of the appeal.
7) After going through the documents and judgment and order passed by the learned Additional District Consumer Forum Nagpur we observed that the theft occurred when it was placed safely in locked room and so this can not be said that it was during transit. The learned Additional District Consumer Forum while passing the order has rightly considered that the theft of cash was not during “transit”, the theft took place. The Additional District Consumer Forum has also taken into account the contents of e-mail dated 19/02/2008 and rightly concluded that the contents of e-mail are not part of policy terms and conditions. We do not find any illegality in the order passed by learned Additional District Consumer Forum, hence the order passed by the learned Additional District Consumer Forum is just, legal and proper. In view of this discussion we pass the following order.
//ORDER//
i. The appeal is hereby dismissed with cost quantified to Rs.50,000/- to be paid by appellant to the respondent within two months from the date of receipt of this order, failing to pay this amount in stipulate time will carry interest @ 12 % p.a. from the date of order till its realisation.
ii. Copy of order be furnished to both the parties free of cost.
