RASAAL HASAN SYED, J.---This appeal has been filed under section 124(2) of The Insurance Ordinance, 2000 ("the Ordinance ") against judgment dated 31.3.2018 of the Insurance Tribunal.
2. One Muhammad Mushtaq Butt purchased Postal Life Insurance Policy bearing No. CL(A)-03460-LHB for the assured sum of Rs.20,00,000/- at monthly premium of Rs.12740/-. The assured died on 13.9.2009 which was approximately four years and one month after the policy was taken out by him. Respondent Muhammad Ishaque Butt, who was the nominee in the policy , lodged a claim on 30.9.2009 with the appellants. Some surrender value was offered to him on 30.6.2010 which was declined and instead of paying the assured sum the appellants, on 01.7.2010, repudiated the claim. The respondent initially lodged a complaint. before the Wafaqi Mohatasib which was subsequently withdrawn and, thereafter , application was filed before the Insurance Tribunal for recovery of policy proceeds in the sum of Rs.20,00,000/- along with liquidated damages under section 118 of the Ordinance.
Issues were framed on 16.8.201 1 wherea fter evidence was recorded by the Insurance Tribunal and judgment was announced in favour of the respondent on 06.1.2016. R.F.A. No.352 of 2016 filed against the judgment was allowed by this Court and case was remanded with the directive to implead the Pakistan Post Office Department and Pakistan Postal Services Management Board as respondents in the case and to decide the matter afresh in accordance with law. After impleading the said entities as respondents, issues were re-framed on 03.11.2017 as follows:
1. Whether this Tribunal has no conclusive jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the matter arising out from insurance policy No.CL(A)-03460.LHB by virtue of section 171(1) of Insurance Ordinance 2000 and if so what is its effect?
OPR.
2. Whether the deceased assured exaggerated his monthly income for purchase of a high value policy which was beyond to his sources? OPR.
3. Whether late assured committed concealment of facts regarding his income and source of income under Rule 6(i) of Post Of fice Insurance Fund rules OPR.
5. Whether the claimant is entitled to recovery polity proceeds under Policy No.CL(A)03460-LHB amounting to Rs.20,00,000/- along with liquidated damages, if so to what extent? OP A.
5. Relief."
Parties relied upon the evidence earlie r recorded in pre-remand proceedings, additional evidence was also produced by the appellants whereafter the application of the respondent was accepted by Insurance Tribunal vide impugned judgment dated 31.03.2018
3. Learned counsel for the appellants states at the outset that the main thrust of attack of the appellants against the impugned judgment is in respect of findings against issue No.3 as it was illegally ignored that the material information was concealed by the assured and, that pursuant to Rule 6(1) of the Post Office Insurance Fund Rules the contract was validity repudiated. Learned counsel for the respondent on the contrary forcefully controverted the stance of appellants and defended the correctness of the findings of Insurance Tribunal on this score..
4. Perusal of record reveals that the purchase of the policy itself was not, in dispu te at any point nor was it under challenge that regular payments were made by the assured and the only basis of declining the claim of the respondent was alleged concealment of material information by the assured in the proposal form regarding source of his income. Respondent appeared as AW-1 himself and produced one Pervaiz Iqbal and Muhammad Razzaq Butt as AW-2 and AW-3 and tendered in evidence death certificate of the assured brother Muhammad Mushtaq Butt, repudiation letter dated 01.7.2010, discharge voucher dated 30.6.2010 as inter alia as ExA/1 to ExA/4 and receipts of claim and other related documents were set out as Mark "A" to Mark "V". The appellants on the other hand inter alia produced Naveed Ahmed Sial, ex-Accounts Officer (BPS-18), Postal Life Insurance Lahore as RW1 and Dildar Ali Jafferi, Assistant Superintendent (Office) Office of the General Manager , Postal Life Insurance, Lahore, GPO as RW2 who were both inquiry officers. Two other witnesses and number of documents were also produced as Ex.R/1 to Ex.R/10 including proposal form, policy bond, loan sanction letter , claim form, statement of Muhammad Ishaque, extracts of the rules, inquiry report, repudiation letter and discharge vouchers.
5. The mainstay of case of the appellan ts was the inquiry report based on which the stance of concealment of material information was created. The witnesses produced by appellants claimed that the establishment called "Zindgi Hotel" was not exclusively owned by the assured who had shown income from it that was material to the contact and that the claim about having other business including an auto-rickshaw dealership in Mohallah Islam Nagar was also not borne out with accuracy on inquiry . This objection basically was that the business premises of the said hotel that the assured claimed to be proprietor of, was being run by his elder brother and although he owned rickshaw business yet the income from that was about Rs.30,000/- and that he had shown his income to be Rs.65,000/- by describing the business of the brothers as his and that, as such, the income given in the form could not exclusively belong to the assured. The appellants could not produce any credible evidence to prove the total income from the hotel and auto-rickshaw dealership instead, the inquiry report was based on mere assumptions and without any supportive admissible evidence.
6. The denial of the claim lodged, by the nominee Muhammad Ishaque Butt on 30.9.2009 only after the death of the assured on 13.9.2009 who had kept on paying the monthly premium of Rs. 12,740/- for more than four years, required much more rigorous standard of proof to dislodge the claim of the respondent; especially when it could not be shown that there had been any default in payment of premium or that the policy documents were not otherwise admissible or enforceable or that the policy was not finalized in due course. In fact, the contents of the proposal form and all the particulars given therein had been verified by the Field Staff at the material stage of contract formation and there was strong inference of correctness attached as the appellants had accepted the particulars after scrutiny by their Field Staff as per procedure whereafter for over four years they kept' receiving premium from the assured without raising any objection . The denial of the claim of the respondent on the basis of reliance on Rule 6(1) of the Post Office Insurance Fund Rules, 2001 at a stage when the assured had died and the liability fell squarely on the appellants, by resorting to an inquiry which was based on conjectures and surmises, being inadmissible is repelled.
7. The Insurance Tribunal upon analysis of evidence produced by the parties remained rightly unconvinced by the probative value and evidentiary basis of material by which the falsification of information was being claimed nor found the testimonies to be sufficient to negate the claim. On deeper scrutiny of record the conclusions drawn by the Insurance Tribunal from the material adduced by both sides is not found to be suffering from any misreading of non-reading nor could any significant error of law be shown to have been committed. The respondent successfully having established his claim, his petition was allowed by the Insurance Tribunal for justifiable reasons. No case could, therefore, be made out by the appellants for interference in appeal with the sound judgment of the Insurance Tribunal.
8. At the fag-end of his submissions the learned counsel for the appellants half-heartedly raised a jurisdictional objection as to authority of the Insurance Tribunal to adjudicate the claim. This objection, as evident from the pleadings of the appellants before the Insurance Tribunal, is to the effect that as per section 171(1) of the Ordinance that the provisions thereof do not apply to insurance business carried out by the Federal or Provincial Government and that appellant, as such, being an instrumentality of the Federal Government shall not be amenable to jurisdiction of the Insurance Tribunal for recovery of insurance claims and that civil court, instead, would be the proper thrum for adjudication of the controversy . This objection, as pointed out by the learned counsel for the respondent, was laid to rest by the Supreme Court of Pakistan vide judgment dated 18.10.2017 in Civil Appeal No. 1287-L of 2017 titled "Postal Life Insurance (PL1), Lahore v. Muhammad Anwar and others " filed by the appellants against judgment dated 16.2.2017 of this Court in Insurance Appeal No. 13 of 2017 in following terms: "2 ...Objection raised is that as per the provisions of section 171(1) of Ordinance of 2000, by virtue of the fact that the postal insurance business/petitioner is being carried on by the Federal Government and not by a body corporate, the case does not fall within the purview of section 171(2) of the Ordina nce, 2000. Suffice it to say that for purposes of considering as to what is the status of the Management Board of the Postal Life Insurance/petitioner (the Board), refere nce has been made to section 3 of the Pakistan Postal Services Management Board Ordinance, 2002 (the Ordinance of 2002) and it is clearly mentioned in subsection (2) thereof that the Board shall be a body corporate having perpetual succession and a common seal, with power , subject to the provisions of this Ordinance, to acquire, hold and dispose of its property , both movable and immovable, and shall by its name sue and be sued. The provisions of section 11 of the Ordinance of 2002, prescribes powers and functions of the Board and as provided in subsection (2)(c) thereof, such powers include "to manage, maintain and operate the Postal Life Insurance throughout Pakistan". Obviously , the Board is a body corporate, therefore, on the basis of its powers to manage, maintain, control and operate the postal insurance business, the case would fall within the purview of section 171(2) of the Ordinance of 2000 and thus, the Insurance Tribunal shall have the jurisdiction to hear and decide the matter ."
(emphasis supplied)
9. Before parting with the judgment it appears necessary to make a clarificatory note that the respondent in instant appeal filed the claim against the policy as nominee of deceased. The nomination by itself only confers right to collect the money but does not operate either as a gift or as a will, in view of the rule in "Mst. Amtul Habib and others v. Mst. Musarrat Parveen and others" (PLD 1974 SC 185), therefore, it cannot deprive the legal heirs of the nominator who are otherwise entitled to inherit the assets of deceased, under the law of succession applicable to the deceased. The respondent as nominee will be entitled to collect the amount of claim as trustee for the benefit of all the legal heirs entitled to inherit from the deceased nominator and will be responsible for disbursement of the awarded claim with liquidated damages, in terms of judgment of the Insurance Tribunal which the respondent as trustee of the amount shall be legally obliged to disburse amongst the legal heirs of deceased.
9(sic.) As upshot of the above the instant appeal being devoid of merit is dismissed.