ORIENTAL INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED Vs. PARVEEN AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Insurance Company is in appeal on the question of quantum. The learned counsel for the insurer would also rely on an application for reception of additional evidence to urge that the claimants had falsely given evidence relating to the income status of the deceased person and that the investigations have revealed that the deceased person was not impleaded in the manner suggested in the petition and in respect of which evidence was given. I am afraid, I cannot allow for any such evidence to be brought on record for the first time here before the Appellate Court. The learned counsel would rely to the decision of the Honourable Supreme Court in United India Insurance Company Limited Vs. Bushan Sachdeva-(2002) 2 SCC 265. that holds that the Insurance Companies make do with public monies and, therefore, it should be taken as an aggrieved person relating to a compensation. The Honourable Supreme Court had in that case states thus,

(2.) The permissible contours, that the Honourable Supreme Court was adverting to, were to arise in two eventualities: (i) when there was a collusion between the claimants and the insured; and (ii) when the insurer failed to contest the case. These are precisely the grounds which are also available under Sec. 170 where under any of the circumstances justifying the insurer to contest the case on all grounds, it should urge these two pleas and seek permission to contest under Sec. 170. If 170 permission had not been taken, the insurer cannot assume an omnibus concern that public monies have to be protected and, therefore, it should have a right of appeal on quantum also. That would mean rewriting the Act itself. If there was a case of fraud in securing the award that will be still a quite different matter. Fraud vitiates all proceedings and it may exist even outside the sphere of what Sec. 170 addresses. If a plea of fraud is not made in securing the award, a false evidence may not mean at all times fraud. The falsity or otherwise of the contentions ought to be best tested only on the turf of a trial Court and not at an appellate forum. The appeal is, therefore, not maintainable and it is dismissed as such. Appeal dismissed.