The duty of the proposer to disclose all material facts in the proposal form and the materiality of the non-disclosed information for the assessment of risk in insurance contracts.

JUDGMENT :

1. These 2 (two) writ petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India have been preferred against non-disbursement of the claims submitted by the petitioners before the respondent Life Insurance Corporation of India (‘the LIC’ and/or ‘the respondent corporation’, for short) as nominees of the deceased life assured in connection with three nos. of life insurance policies taken by the deceased life assured. The name of the deceased life assured is Saiful Islam. The petitioner in the writ petition, WP(C) no. 4370/2016 i.e. Syed Saidur Rahman is the brother of the deceased life assured whereas the petitioner in the writ petition, W.P.(C) no. 4403/2016 i.e. Syed Nur Mohammed is the father of the deceased life assured. The petitioner in W.P.(C) 4370/2016 was the nominee made by the deceased life assured in respect of the Policy No. 484626286. On the other hand, the petitioner in W.P.(C) no. 4403/2016 was the nominee for the deceased life assured in respect of two policies – Policy No. 485046083 and Police No. 485046459. When the respondent LIC did not disburse the sum assured in respect of the policies referred above after submissions of claims by the petitioners, the petitioners have approached this Court by way of these two writ petitions seeking directions to the LIC to disburse the sum assured in favour of the petitioners in connection with the afore-mentioned three policies.

2. As the issue involved in both the writ petitions is common and inter-connected, the two writ petitions are taken up together at the request of the learned counsel for the parties. The necessary facts required for the purpose of determination of the common issue involved in the two writ petitions may be stated as follows :-

2.1 The deceased Saiful Islam was a small-time businessman who used to deal in milk. It has been stated that he used to manage his family from the income generated from his business. During his lifetime, the deceased had insured himself with five nos. of life insurance policies under the respondent corporation and the same are as under :

2.2 From the above table, it is evident that the petitioner in W.P.(C) no. 4370/2016 was made the nominee in respect of two nos. of insurance policies – Policy No. 485393594 and Policy No. 484626286 whereas the petitioner in W.P.(C) no. 4403/2016 was made the nominee by the deceased in respect of two other policies – Policy No. 485046083 and Policy No. 485046459. After getting himself insured with the aforesaid policies, the deceased died on 20.02.2011 due to Acute Gastro Enteritis (AGE) with Septicemia in shock and respiratory failure at an young age of 21 years leaving behind his father, his mother and his brother. A death certificate was issued on 01.03.2011 by the Department of Health Services, Government of Assam recording the date of death of the deceased as 20.02.2011.

3. The case projected on behalf of the petitioners is that after the death of Saiful Islam, Syed Saidur Islam being the nominee of the deceased, submitted the claims for the two policies -Policy No. 485393594 and Policy No. 484626286 -on 24.02.2012 along with the requisite documents. When he did not receive any intimation from the respondent corporation, Syed