STATE CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSALCOMMISSION, PUNJAB, CHANDIGARH First Appeal No.27 of 2023 Date of Institution : 12.01.2023 Date of Reserve : 26.04.2024 Date of Decision : 24.05.2024 Ageas Federal Life Insurance Company Limited (Formerly known as ‘IDBI Federal Insurance Company Ltd.’), 22^nd Floor, A Wing, Marathon Futurex, NM Joshi Marg, Lower Parel (E), Mumbai-400013.

…….Appellant/Opposite Party No.1 Versus

1. Sunita Kumari W/o Late Satish Kumar, R/o 117, Ram Nagar, Verka, Amritsar, Punjab.

…….Respondent No.1/Complainant

2. IDBI Bank Ltd., through its Branch Manager/Principal Officer, Service through Branch Manager, Deep Complex, Court Road, Amritsar.

3. Sameer Dua S/o Late Satish Kumar Dua. 4. Abhinav Dua S/o Late Satish Kumar Dua.

Both R/o 117, Ram Nagar, Verka, Amritsar.

…….Respondents No.2-4/Opposite Parties No.2-4 First Appeal under Section 41 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 against the Order dated 17.10.2022 passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Amritsar in CC No.198 of 2022.

Quorum:-

Hon’ble Mrs. Justice Daya Chaudhary, President Ms. Simarjot Kaur, Member

1) Whether Reporters of the Newspapers may be allowed to see the Judgment? Yes/No

2) To be referred to the Reporters or not? Yes/No

3) Whether judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes/No Present :-

For the appellant : Sh.Tushar Arora, Advocate for Sh.Inderjit Singh, Advocate For respondents No.1&3: Sh.Sukhandeep Singh, Adv.

For respondent No.2 : Sh.Sunil Narang, Advocate For respondent No.4 : None SIMARJOT KAUR, MEMBER This Appeal has been filed by the Appellant/Opposite Party No.1 under Section 41 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (in short ‘The Act’) being aggrieved by the impugned Order dated 17.10.2022 passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Amritsar (in short ‘the District Commission’) whereby the Complaint of the Complainant had been allowed against OP No.1.

2. It would be apposite to mention that hereinafter the parties will be referred, as had been arrayed before the District Commission.

3. Briefly, the facts of the case as made out by the Complainant before the District Commission are that husband of the Complainant Mr.Satish Kumar (deceased) had availed housing loan from OP No.2 which was got secured by the bank from OP No.1 vide policy No. 4001364018 for the period from 7.12.2019 to 6.12.2029 for securing loan of Rs.21,35,015/-. The Complainant is the nominee in the said policy. It was averred that neither the policy nor any terms and conditions were supplied by OPs No.1&2. Satish Kumar husband of the complainant expired on 15.10.2021. The intimation regarding his demise was given to the OPs and all the requisite documents required to settle the claim were submitted. The claim was repudiated by the OP No.1 vide letter dated 10.2.2022. The complainant moved an application dated 28.02.2022 to the OP No.2 to provide the copy of policy. The OPs provided the copy of policy along with declaration form, amended proposal form which was executed on 06.12.2019 at Chandigarh. Neither the Complainant nor the deceased Satish Kumar had signed these documents. They never went to Chandigarh. The said documents had been manipulated by the OPs. Moreover in the declaration form the height of the husband of the Complainant was shown as 5’7” and weight as 71 kgs whereas the height was 5’9” and weight was above 90 Kgs which shows that the OPs maliciously filled the declaration form which did not bear the signatures neither of the deceased nor of the Complainant. This act of OPs amount to ‘deficiency in service’, and ‘unfair trade practice’ which had caused mental agony, harassment, inconvenience to the Complainant. Hence, the Complaint filed by the Complainant and sought the following reliefs:-

(i) OP No.1 be directed to make the payment of the remaining loan amount i.e. Rs.19,08,538/- to OP No.2 and OP No.2 be directed to issue NOC for the said loan account ;

(ii) To pay compensation of an amount of Rs.50,000/- along with litigation