IMPORTANT POINT
Complainant must adduce rebuttal evidence to fortify his case.

Vinay Kumar, Member—The complaint of the revision petitioner was dismissed by District Forum, Raipur and his appeal against this dismissal itself was dismissed by the State Commission, Chhattisgarh.

2. In very brief, the facts of the case of the Complainant related to his insurance claim arising from accident of his insured Tata truck. The claim was repudiated by the insurance company on the ground that the truck was being operated under an inter-state permit, which was found to be fake. Before the District Forum, the Complainant denied that the permit was fake and claimed that the OP had not been able to prove that the permit was a fake one. While dismissing the complaint, the District Forum observed that—

“The Respondent Insurance Company has placed before us Permit No.3553/006 (Annexure -3) and a certificate issued by R.T.A. Raipur (Annexure-4). In this way it is established that the applicant had not taken any permit from R.T.A. Raipur for the insured vehicle, but the applicant was plying his vehicle on a bogus permit and was giving financial loss to the Govt., this way the vehicle was used by the applicant in contravention of policy condition and also in violation of the provisions of M.V. Act, 1988 Section 66 and 149.”

3. The State Commission has noted that the relevant permit (Authorisation No. 3563/2006 dated 4.12.2006), on verification with the Regional Transport Authority, Raipur, was found to have not been issued by the Raipur Authority. The State Commission therefore concluded that—

“On appraisal of the certificate of Rto and affidavit of Shri Chakravorty, we are of the considered view that the insurer has established that the permit was fake and as held by the Apex Court in Challa Bharathamma’s (supra) case, the Insurance Company cannot be held liable.”

4. We have perused the records as submitted by the revision petitioner. As per the petition, the insurance company had misguided the State Commission but the petition makes no attempt to explain how. We have also heard Mr R K Bhawnani, advocate for the revision petitioner and Mr A K Kaul for the respondent/Oriental Insurance Co.

5. During the course of present proceedings, learned counsel for the revision petitioner made a specific request on 5.10.2010 for time to produce documents in support of the claim of the petitioner that the route permit produce before the fora below was a genuine document and not a fake one. He was permitted to do so. The document filed in compliance was considered by this Commission on 21.3.2012. It was found to be a copy of the printed conditions of the Policy under Commercial Vehicles Package Policy. This was noted as no compliance with the direction of the Commission. Subsequently, on 9.11.2010 the counsel filed copies of the following two documents:-

(A) the motor claim form submitted by the Complainant to the Oriental Insurance Company and

(B) Copy of the authority letter of 4.12.2006. This document is styled ‘paryatan parmit ya rashtriya parmit kay liye pradhikar partra’.

The first has nothing to do with the genuineness or otherwise of the route permit. The second is a copy of the very same document, which was held to be non-genuine by the fora below. Thus, learned counsel for the revision petitioner has completely failed to utilize the three opportunities given by this Commission. Neither the counsel nor the revision petition itself point to any specific piece of evidence which was produced before the fora below de hors the evidence of OP/Oriental Insurance Company, showing the route permit to be a fake one.

6. The revision petitioner has sought to rely on the decision of this Commission in Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Ganpati Foods & Anr.1 It was a case of transport of edible oil in a road tanker, which met with an accident. It was found that, at the time of the loss, the tanker was carrying 29000 kgms of this oil, as against the carrying capacity of 16,000 kgms. The counsel for the Insurance Company contended that it coul