Insurance claim repudiation cannot rest on unproved suppression or identity discrepancies.

Saurav Kumar Sharma was insured under three Jeevan Anand policies issued by the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), each for ₹5,00,000.

He died in a road accident on 7 December 2014. An FIR was registered under Sections 279 and 304-A of the IPC, and the police subsequently submitted a final report after investigation.

His mother, Ashwani Devi, the nominee, submitted the death claim on 7 May 2015.

LIC repudiated the claim on 17 March 2016, alleging discrepancies in the deceased’s age and post-mortem records and suppression of earlier insurance policies in subsequent proposal forms.

The appellate authority upheld the repudiation on 4 October 2018.

During the proceedings, Ashwani Devi died, and the petitioner claimed entitlement under a registered Will. Probate of the Will was subsequently granted in his favour.

The petitioner contended that the proposal forms had been filled in by the LIC agent and that the deceased had merely signed them, making the alleged non-disclosure neither deliberate nor conscious.

Whether LIC’s repudiation of the death claim on the grounds of discrepancies in the deceased’s age, post-mortem records, and alleged suppression of prior insurance policies was legally sustainable?

Whether the alleged non-disclosure of earlier insurance policies could be treated as deliberate and conscious suppression when the proposal forms were stated to have been filled in by the LIC agent?

Whether the writ petition was maintainable despite the availability of an alternative remedy before the Consumer Forum?

Whether the petitioner, claiming through the deceased nominee under a Will, was entitled to pursue the insurance claim?

The Court applied the principles governing judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution, including the discretion to entertain a writ petition despite an alternative remedy where the impugned action is found unsustainable on the record or the matter has remained pending for a considerable period.

It applied the insurance-law principle that repudiation for suppression of material facts must be supported by reliable material establishing deliberate and conscious non-disclosure; mere suspicion, documentary discrepancies, or unproved allegations are insufficient to defeat a genuine death claim.

The Court also treated the identity and occurrence of death as matters requiring objective proof, holding that a discrepancy in the age recorded in an initial FIR, lodged before identification of the body, could not by itself invalidate the claim.

No specific statutory provision or judicial precedent was cited in the judgment.

The Court held that the age discrepancy in the initial FIR and the alleged defects in the post-mortem report did not conclusively establish either that the deceased was not Saurav Kumar Sharma or that the death was doubtful, particularly because the deceased had been identified during investigation and the police had submitted a final report.

With respect to suppression, the statement of the LIC agent that he had filled in the proposal forms and that the deceased had merely signed them materially weakened the allegation of intentional non-disclosure.

LIC also failed to establish a nexus between the alleged omission and the accidental death, and its subsequent enquiry into the agent’s role indicated that the proposal forms required further proper consideration.

Consequently, the repudiation could not be sustained merely on suspicion or unproved allegations.

Given these findings, and because the matter had remained pending for several years, the Court declined to reject the petition solely on the ground of an alternative remedy.

The Will and probate proceedings were relevant to the petitioner’s standing to pursue the claim, although they did not independently determine the validity of LIC’s repudiation.

The Court also held that the writ petition should not be dismissed on the ground of an alternative remedy in the circumstances of the case.

The writ petition was accordingly allowed, and the interlocutory applications, if any, were disposed of.