IMPORTANT POINT
Filing of a large number of documents without even a remote reference to any one of them, is not sufficient to accept claim made.

D.K. Jain, President—This First Appeal by the New India Assurance Co. Ltd. (for short “the Insurance Company”) is directed against the order dated 09.04.2009, passed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Delhi at New Delhi (for short “the State Commission”) in Complaint Case No. C-24/2004. By the impugned order, the State Commission, while accepting the claim made by the Complainant in its Complaint, in toto, has directed the Insurance Company to pay to the Complainant a sum of Rs.30,59,555/- as claimed under the insurance policy towards the actual loss and a further sum of Rs.1,00,000/- as compensation for the mental agony, including cost of litigation.

2. Since, on a bare reading of the impugned order, we are of the view that the said direction is not sustainable, as it does not record any reason in support of the final conclusion, we deem it unnecessary to state the facts, giving rise to the present Appeal, in greater detail. It would suffice to note that the Complainant had preferred with the Insurance Company the afore-noted claim in respect of a consignment of 5766 cartons of canned fruit and 1290 cartons of assorted jam from Kolkata (Port of Lading) to Illychevsk, Russia under BoL No. MOS/1 dated 04.08.1992. The said consignment was covered under a Marine Open Insurance Policy, obtained by the Complainant from the Insurance Company for an assured sum of Rs.2,00,00,000/-. However, when the consignment reached the Port of Destination, all the cartons were found damaged. Consequently, on the request of the consignee, a Surveyor was appointed to carry out quality and quantity survey of the consignment. On receipt of report of the Surveyor, wherein he had observed that the entire consignment had been damaged, the Complainant informed the Insurance Company about it and preferred the afore-noted claim.

3. The Insurance Company appointed a Surveyor to assess the loss claimed to have been suffered by the Complainant. Although it appears from the record that some correspondence was exchanged between the Complainant and the Surveyor, wherein the Surveyor had observed that the requisite information, as sought for, had not been furnished by the Complainant, but evidently there was no response from the side of the Insurance Company on the said claim. Perhaps a stony silence on the part of the Insurance Company prompted the Complainant to issue a legal notice dated 28.05.2002 to the Insurance Company. Unfortunately, the Insurance Company chose not to respond to the same.

4. Left with no option, the Complainant filed the Complaint against the Insurance Company before the State Commission.

5. The Complaint was resisted by the Insurance Company on diverse grounds. It was also pleaded that the Complaint was barred by limitation, inasmuch as the claim having been preferred as far back as on 08.04.1993, the Complaint was filed only in the year 2004, i.e. much after the expiry of the statutory period.

6. Referring to the letters exchanged between the parties from time to time, the State Commission has come to the conclusion that the Complaint was not barred by limitation. Insofar as the merits of the claim were concerned, as noted above, the State Commission has allowed the full claim made in the Complaint, by a short and cryptic order, which reads as under:

“7. Since the Surveyors of the OP failed to assess the loss on the basis of documents and information provided by the complainant and have wrongly filed the claim as “No Claim” as it was their duty to assess the loss based upon the documents available with them and produced by the complainant, we have no other option left than to allow the complaint as large number of documents have been filed by the complainant as to the loss suffered by him which are on record.”

7. Hence, the present Appeal.

8. It is manifest from the afore-extracted order that the State Commission has failed to record any reasons in support of its conclusion that the loss assessed by the Complainant was i