1. This is a First Appeal filed by the Appellant / Complainant against the Order of the Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (in short, the State Commission), which by its Order dated 26.09.2016, dismissed the Complaint.
2. The brief facts of the case are that the Appellant had taken a home loan from the Respondent No. 2, which provided for a group health scheme called  Super Suraksha for borrowers of housing loan of State Bank of India. The deceased life assured (in short, the DLA), who had taken such housing loan was issued certificate of insurance on 09.03.2009. The assured met with death on 09.10.2011 during the currency of the insurance policy. The Insurance Company repudiated the claim of the Complainant, who is the wife of the DLA on the ground of DLA suffering from and under treatment for diabetes mellitus type-2 and having undergone bariatric surgery prior to the date of enrolment for the Policy. 
3. The learned Counsel for the Appellant submitted that in the repudiation letter, the name of the deceased was mentioned as later Kripal Singh Thakur, whereas, the DLA’s name was Rajkumar Udnaram Purswani. Therefore, this is a wrong repudiation letter which cannot be held against the DLA and consequently the State Commission’s Order needs to be set aside. Further, there a dichotomy between diseases mentioned in the repudiation letter and the medical record submitted, which is available on file.
4. The learned Counsel for the Respondent submitted that this is a clear case of non-disclosure of pre-existing diseases and from the hospital record, it is clear that the DLA was a known case of diabetes and that a bariatric surgery was conducted in the year 2007. He further submitted that there is no error in the diseases mentioned in repudiation letter as the patient was suffering from liver cirrhosis, which is noted in the hospital record placed on file.  The name mentioned in the repudiation letter is a typographical error and needs to be ignored. The State Commission’s Order needs to be upheld.
5. I have gone through the record carefully as well as heard the submissions made by the learned Counsel for both the parties.
6. It is a fact that the DLA was having pre-existing disease, which he did not divulge in his good health declaration dated 11.11.2008 as well as in the medical examination report dated 10.09.2008. Further, the same was not disclosed in the health status report dated 11.10.2008, wherein clearly a question was asked about diabetes, which the DLA declined. The learned Counsel for the Insurance Company made a reference to the Order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Satwant Kaur Sandhu vs. New India Assurance Co. Ltd., Civil Appeal No. 2776 of 2002 and Reliance Life Insurance Co. Ltd. vs. Rekhaben Nareshbhai Rathod, 2019 (4) ABR 106.  It would be worthwhile to quote the relevant observation of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Reliance Life Insurance Co. Ltd. (supra) as under:               26.       Contracts of insurance are governed by the principle of utmost good faith. The duty of mutual fair dealing requires all parties to a contract to be fair and open with each other to create and maintain trust between them. In a contract of insurance, the insured can be expected to have information of which she/he has knowledge. This justifies a duty of good faith, leading to a positive duty of disclosure. The duty of disclosure in insurance contracts was established in a King’s Bench decision in Carter v Boehm (1766) 3 Blurr 1905, where Lord Mansfield held thus:

Insurance is a contract upon speculation. The special facts, upon which the contingent chance is to be computed, lie most commonly in the knowledge of the insured only; the underwriter trusts to his representation, and proceeds upon confidence that he does not keep back any circumstance in his knowledge, to mislead the under-writer into a belief that the circumstance does not exist, and to induce him to estimate the risque, as if it did not exist.

It is standard practice for the insurer to set out in the application a series of specific questions regarding the applicant's health history and other matters relevant to insurability. The object of the proposal form is to gather information about a potential client, allowing the insurer to get all information which is material to the insurer to know in order to assess the risk and fix the premium for each potential client. Proposal forms are a significant part of the disclosure procedure and warrant accuracy of statements. Utmost care must be exercised in filling the proposal form. In a proposal form the applicant declares that she/he warrants truth. The contractual duty so imposed is such that any suppression, untruth or inaccuracy in the statement in the proposal form will be considered as a breach of the duty of good faith and will render the policy voidable by the insurer. The system of adequate disclosure helps buyers and sellers of insurance policies to meet at a common point and narrow down the gap of information asymmetries. This allows the parties to serve their interests better and understand the true extent of the contractual agreement.

The finding of a material misrepresentation or concealment in insurance has a significant effect upon both the insured and the insurer in the event of a dispute. The fact it would influence the decision of a prudent insurer in deciding as to whether or not to accept a risk is a material fact. As this Court held in Satwant Kaur (supra) “there is a clear presumption that any information sought for in the proposal form is material for the purpose of entering into a contract of insurance”. Each representation or statement may be material to the risk. The insurance company may still offer insurance protection on altered terms.

7. Undoubtedly, this is a case of non-disclosure and pre-existing diseases. Going by the Order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Reliance Life Insurance Co. Ltd. (supra), I find no illegality in the Order of the State Commission, which is a well-reasoned Order and suffers from no illegality, irregularity or jurisdictional error.
8. Accordingly, in view of the aforesaid discussion, the First Appeal is dismissed.