RAMAMURTI J

The Life Insurance Corporation of India (Unit : The Oriental Government Security Life Assurance Co. Ltd. Bombay) hereinafter called the company, is the appellant in this appeal. The respondent Srimathi Parvathavardhini Ammal who is the widow of one V S N C ) has filed the suit, O S No. 62 of 1958, on the file of the Sub-Court, Tirchirappalli, to cover a sum of Rs. 20, 000 due under an Insurance Policy No. 1733287, dated 22nd May, 1954 and a sum of Rs. 30, 000 due under another Insurance Policy No. 1855372, dated 26th March, 1955, on the ground that the said policies were accepted at the ordinary rate by the insurance company certifying the life of V S N C aforesaid as a first class one by four eminent doctors of the company, that the plaintiff (respondent) was the nominee under the aforesaid two policies, that the said assured died on 20th May, 1955 on account of coronary thromobosis which attack set in on 17th May, 1955, and that the insurance company had wrongfully repudiated the claim of the plaintiff on 26th November, 1957

The three grounds on which the plaintiff's claim was resisted by the company were : (i) that V S N C the assured, was suffering from high blood- pressure and diabetes with high percentage of sugar and albumen in his urine and that he did not disclose the same to the company at the time when the two proposals were made by him. (ii) that V S N C did not disclose to the company that he made a proposal in 1929 for insurance to the branch of the Oriental Insurance Company at Tirchirappalli, and that it was accepted with an extra amount but that it did not materialise for that reason, and (iii) that the correct ages of the parents of V S N C at the time of their deaths were not given by him, when the proposals for the suit policies were made, but that he deliberately and fraudulently gave incorrect and false dates. As the policies were repudiated more than two years after the expiry of two years from the date on which they were effected under section 45 of the Insurance Act. the burden of proving that the policies were vitiated by any fraudulent misrepresentation or fraudulent suppression of material facts was rightly placed upon the company The learned Subordinate Judge, in a very carefully considered judgment fully analysed the oral and documentary evidence adduced on both sides and came to the conclusion that the defendant company not only had not discharged the burden but that the plaintiff had satisfactorily proved that V S N C the deceased was not guilty of any fraudulent misrepresentation or suppression of material and important facts when he made the proposal for insurance which were accepted by the company. We have ourselves carefully scrutinised the evidence both oral and documentary, bearing upon the three relevant aspects mentioned above, and we are glad to say that the learned Subordinate Judge's respective of approach and his assessment of the oral and documentary evidence are quite sound and satisfactory. We have no hesitation in accepting, completely, his reasonings and conclusions. As we will presently show this is one of those cases in which not only the defendant company has totally failed to discharge the burden arising under section 45 of the Insurance Act, but the plaintiff has positively proved that the policy was not vitiated by any of the circumstances mentioned in section 45 of the Act

We shall first take up the question as to whether the assured was suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, with sugar and albumen in urine and whether he frauculently suppressed this important information when he made the proposal for insurance

[His Lordship referred to the evidence and proceeded:] To sum up, therefore we are clearly of the opinion that there is acceptable satisfactory proof on the plaintiff's side that V S N C did not suffer from bold-pressure or diabetes or from any other serious ailment

We then pass on to the next point:

"Whether the policies were vitiated