RASAAL HASAN SYED, J.---This judgment shall decide both the instant appeal as well Insurance Appeal No.36 1 of 2016 titled "Postal Life Insurance v. Muhammad Iqbal" under section 124(2) of The Insurance Ordinance, 2000 (the "Ordinance ") as the same are directed against cons olidated judgment dated 02.2/016 of the Insurance Tribunal and involve common questions of law fact.
2. Brief background is that husband and wife Muhammad Iqbal and Mst. Yasmeen procured two Life Endowment Assurance/Postal Life Insurance Policies bearing Nos. CL(J)-09891/LHA(RISK) and CL-3844- J(RISK) at different dates for respective assured sums of Rs.25,00,000/- and Rs.2,00,000/-. Co-assured Mst. Yasmeen met with an accident by falling from the train at Railway Station Mehrab Pur and succumbed to her injuries at hospital on 12.5.2005. Respondent husband filed an insurance claim against the two joint Life Endowment Assurance Policies supra. Claims were repudiated by the appellants on 03.11.2009 and separate applications under section 122 of the Ordinance were filed in the month of March, 2010. As both claims arose out of the same events and were turned down for materially similar reasons by the appellants, the following consolidated issues were framed by the Insurance Tribunal:
1. Whether the applicant has no cause of action to file the instant application? OPR
2. Whether the applicant has not approached this Tribunal with clean hands? OPR
3. Whether the application has been filed just to harass and blackmail the respondent? OPR
4. Whether the applicant has concealed material facts in this application? OPR
5. Whether the applicant is entitled to recovery of Insurance Police proceeds along with liquidated damages? OP A
6. Relief.
3. The Insurance Tribunal after receiving evidence and upon conclusion of trial allowed both claims of the respondent by its consolidated judgment with liquidated damages under section 118 of the Ordinance. Insurance Appeal No. 360 of 2016 pertains to grant of claim against policy No. CL-3844-J(RISK) for assured sum of Rs.2,00,000/- whereas Insurance Appea l No.361 of 2016 corresponds to policy No. CL(J)-09891/LHA(RI K) for assured sum of Rs.25,00,000/-.
4. Learned counsel for appellant has pressed his objection in both appeals principally against findings regarding consolidated issue No.4 by contending that the claimant had concealed material facts in the proposal forms for both policies and that, as such, by virtue of Rule 6(1) of the' Post Office Insurance Fund Rules, insurance contracts stood validly repudiated and that the judgment of the Insurance Tribunal is not in accordance with law. Learned counsel for the respondent on the other hand has argued against the stance taken by the learned counsel for the appellants and forcefully supported the judgment of the Insurance Tribunal.
5. Perusal of record reveals that in fact issue No.4 remained convergent to contro versy inter se the litigants in the proceedings before the Insurance Tribunal as claim was repudiated in both policies on the basis of alleged concealment. The claimant in order to substantiate the stance appeared as AW1 and produced one Manzoor Ahmed as AW2. Insurance policies and receipts of payments were produced as Ex.AW-1/1 to Ex.AW-1/6.
Information of the death of his wife by the Railway Police Mehrab Pur, newspaper clippings of the occurrence, railway ticket of Mst. Yasmeen deceased, death certificate by the union council and Nishtar Hospital, Multan were also tendered in evidence. The respondent also produced letters issued by the appellant authority with regard to the insurance policy and the insurance claim itself which were duly exhibited. Main ground raised by the appellant to treat the claims as inadmissible is rested on the evidence of the insurance verification committee which had reported that the respondent had faked his financial status by furnishing false information with regard to his income as well as landholding. The specific objection was that the respondent was only owner of 07 acres of cultivated land and 16 acres of barren land which was on lease from the government and that the land which was owned and cultivated by him was insuf ficient to claim the income given in the relevant forms and that the financial status as could be noted from the living standard of the claimant at Multan did not indicate him to be a man of self-suf ficient means and that the inquiry report reflected that number of discrepancies emerged including the fact that Mst.
Yasmeen was not claimant's only wife. The verification report was tendered in evidence as Ex.R2/1-42. Two members of the committee appeared as RW-1 and RW-2 in support of the stance of the appellant department. The recommendation as recorded in the repor t was that the death claim was liable to be rejected under Rule 6(1) of the Post Office Insurance Fund Rules, 2001 due to concealment of facts and that only surrender value was admissible.
RW-1 and RW-2 in their testimony in support of the appellants' claim qua insuf ficien cy of the financial means of the respondent, tendered in evidence photocopies of documents that had allegedly been procured during the inquiry relating to the stance that the respondent was owner of 07 acres of cultivated land and 16 acres of barren land rather than 35 acres of agriculture, land as was asserted. These documents were only photocopies. Neither any official revenue departmental record was produced nor certified copies of any such documents to substantiate the stance were produced. It is also observed that the witness of appellant admitted in their cross-examination neither any original record was ever produced before them during inquiry nor any certified copies of such documents were ever produced. So much so the enquiry members did not claim having ever confronted the photocopies to the claimant. Even AW2, witness of the claimant during cross-examination, in reply to a suggestion of counsel for the appellant responded by stating that "...it is incorrect to suggest that out of 35 acres land, 17 acres is a barren land...". The suggestion showed that the appellant admitted the ownership of 35 acres of land of the respondent, therefore, the report of the committee as to the ownership of respondent being 07 acres was incorrect and it is for this reason that no effort was ever made to requisition the original record in respect of the photocopies of documents. The learned Insurance Tribunal in these circumstances rightly discarded the inadmissible documents.
Furthermore, it emerged during the course of cross-examination that the inquiry committee had conducted its entire proceedings without including, informing or associating the respondent to impart any credibility to the process. The committee members did not even bothe r to require respondent to provide documents relating his property . The entire evidence of the inquiry committee, as such, appeared in dim light as motivated effort to negate the claim on activation of the contingent contract at occurrence of event.
6. The documents pertaining to the policy containing the information at the time the two Life Insurance Policies were finalized were expected to have undergone the process of due and proper scrutiny . It was admitted by RW-1 in cross-examination that the insurance policy was issued after obtaining report from the field officer. Despite that no such objection was ever raised as was being taken after the demise of insured, which speaks volumes about the conduct of the appellant. In the circu mstances the picking of fault in the inform ation did not bode well for the credibility of the stance of the department which even otherwise remained unsubstantiated on record as no admissible evidence was produced to substantiate the underlying basis of repudiation of the claim to impart credibility to the statements of the inquiry officers and their report. The respondent on the other hand produced the entire chain of documents to set up the case as pleaded through the petition filed before the Insurance Tribunal mentioned supra. The Insurance Tribunal upon detailed analysis and consideration of the entire evidence and the stance of the respective sides, correctly concluded that the insurer had failed to produce any reliable admissible evidence to impart any credence to the justification for repudiation of the claim of the assured or to show any reasonable justification for such repudiation and decided issue No.4 against the appellant. The findings so recorded on careful scrutiny of the entire record, are not found to be inaccurate or unjustified in the circumstances nor could any specific instance of material mis-reading or non-reading or misapplication of law be raised by the learned counsel for the appellants during the course of his presentation of the appeals as to require interference.
Order-sheet suggests that some amount was ordered to be deposited by the appellants to be invested in some profit bearing scheme. If this is so the yield from this deposit shall be applied towa rds total decretal amount that is required to be paid by the appellants to the decree holder .
7. 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, the provisions thereof do not apply to insurance business carried out by the Federal or Provincial Government; and that appellants, 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 forum for adjudication of the controversy . This objection, as pointed out by the learned counsel for the respondent, has been 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 (PLI), 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;". Obvious ly, the Board is a body corporate, therefo re, 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)
8. As sequel to the above we find instant appeals to be devoid of any merit. Both appeals are, accordingly , dismissed .