Insurance relief for bereaved kin of home guard

The kin of a home guard who died in a highway accident had been in for relief after a client fee directed an insurance coverage firm to pay ₹5 lakh as unintentional dying protection. The firm had repudiated the insurance coverage declare stating that the sufferer was underneath the affect of alcohol, which the fee didn’t settle for.

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at Nalgonda was coping with a grievance filed by Shakuntala Bai (35), spouse and nominee of Venkoba Shary, with the Inspector General of Police and New India Assurance Company as the other events.

The sufferer was a member of Telangana Transport and Non-Transport Auto Drivers, Homeguards and Journalists Social Security Scheme, and was coated by a gaggle insurance coverage coverage prolonged by the State authorities. In October 2017. he was using a two-wheeler when he met with a highway accident and succumbed to his accidents. In February 2018, his spouse filed a declare. Four months later, the declare was repudiated on the grounds that the sufferer was underneath the affect of alcohol, a situation which isn’t coated underneath the coverage.

Contesting this, Ms Shakuntala Bai cited the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, which famous that ‘merely because case history reveals factum of alcohol influence without any supportive or cogent evidence, it cannot be concluded as person was under alcohol influence’.

For their half, the corporate acknowledged that affected person discharge data of Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences mirror that the sufferer was underneath the affect of alcohol on the time of the highway accident, and cited two orders of Supreme Court.

The fee was of the view that the trigger of dying as recorded within the autopsy report was ‘blunt injury to the abdomen’. It additionally acknowledged that ‘there was no report with regard to the contents of viscera tested in lab for any alcohol presence in the stomach of the deceased’.

“Except for the clinical history of the deceased in Exs.B-3 and B-4, there is no supporting investigation report or any lab report filed by Opposite Party No.2 to establish that the deceased died due to influence of alcohol in the road accident. Hence, it is concluded that the cause of death of the deceased is due to road accident and not due to intoxication,” an excerpt from the order reads.

The fee acknowledged that the corporate was poor is service and directed them to pay ₹5 lakh with 9% curiosity every year.