LAW FOR ALL

WRIT- CONSUMER COMMISSION- SEC. 46,47 OF INSURANCE OF ACT - WHO HAS TO FILE A CIVIL SUIT IN CIVIL COURT = WHEN CONSUMER COMMISSION REFUSED TO DECIDED AN INSURANCE CLAIM = National Consumer Reddressal Commission, New Delhi, wherein it has opined that all the cases require recording of voluminous evidence and that realising this difficulty, the learned counsel representing the appellants/revision petitioners sought liberty to approach the civil Court for the purpose of recovering the claim amounts. Accordingly, liberty was given to them to approach the civil Court. ; who among the parties must approach the civil Court. under sec.47 of INSURANCE ACT= the occasion for the insurer to approach the civil Court under Section 47 of the Act would arise when there is no dispute as to the payment of the insured amount but the dispute as to the persons to whom the amount has to be paid or if there is insufficiency of proof of title to the amount secured or any other adequate reason which render it impossible for the insurer to obtain a satisfactory discharge for the payment of such amount. It is not the pleaded case of either party that the insurer is willing to discharge the insured amount but on account of any one or more of the above noted reasons contained under Section 47 of the Act, the insurer is unable to secure discharge. As noted herein before, all the insurance companies have resisted the claims of the petitioners before all the fora on the ground that there are serious suspicious circumstances rendering the very claims of the nominees of the insured, doubtful. Therefore, on a careful consideration of the facts of the cases on hand, I have no doubt in my mind that Section 47 of the Act has no application to the present cases and there is no obligation cast on the insurance companies to approach the civil Court. As rightly undertaken by the petitioners before the National Consumer Reddressal Commission, it is they who need to approach the civil Court by way of regular civil suits if they intend to claim the insured amounts as the purported nominees of the policyholders. For the above-mentioned reasons, I do not find any merit in these writ petitions and the same are accordingly dismissed.