Timely lodging of FIR is essential for insurance claims; delays create grounds for claim rejection.

10. It is at once clear that so far as the requirement of immediately lodging of the FIR is concerned, in the decision in Gurshinder Singh (supra), this Court has endorsed the view taken by 2-Judge Bench of this Court in Om Prakash v. Reliance General Insurance , 2018 (1) JCLR 25 (SC) : 2018 (1) JCLR (Diglot) 352 (SC): (2017) 9 SCC 74. Thus, it remains beyond cavil that on occurrence of such an event like theft of the vehicle, the owner of the vehicle (the insured), cannot avoid his responsibility to immediately lodge the FIR. In both the aforesaid decisions in Gurshinder Singh and Dharamender, the repudiation only on the ground of delay in informing the insured has not been approved on the given set of facts. The present one is a case of unexplained and inordinate delay of eight days in lodging the FIR. The said decisions do not make out a case for interference.

11. In any case, the necessity of giving immediate notice to the police can-not be gainsaid and if that had not been done, the entire claim would come un-der a thick cloud of suspicion and the onus is then heavy on the insured to justify the delay. In the present case, to-wards such justification, the submission on behalf of the petitioner is that it took him longer time in travelling from Ludhiana in the State of Punjab to Vardhaman in the State of West Bengal and therefore, the FIR was lodged after a delay of eight days. The three fora have observed, and rightly so, that with the means of faster communications available, delay of eight days in lodging the FIR remains unexplained and does not stand in conformity with the requirement of immediate action.

12. Moreover, the other pertinent part of the matter, that there had been want of reasonable care on the part of the petitioner or his employees in taking reasonable care of the insured vehicle, operates heavily against the petitioner. It is specifically found that the truck in question was left unattended on the roadside with ignition keys therein. Though learned Counsel for the petitioner has referred to the assertions made by the driver in his affidavit that they had parked the vehicle on the road side 'after properly locking the same', but such a statement is incompatible with the statement given by the petitioner himself that the vehicle was stolen with the ignition keys. That be-ing the position, repudiation of the claim of the petitioner cannot be faulted at.

13. In view of the above, no case for interference is made out. The special leave petition, therefore, stands dismissed. All pending applications also stand disposed Appeal dismissed. of.