One insurance claim can be denied if a Vehicle not valid Registration, ns Supreme court Rejecting the claim of theft of a car with provisional registration on Thursday, he said.

A bench headed by Justice UU Lalit said that if there is a fundamental breach of the terms and conditions of the policy, the claim for the sum assured will be dismissed.

A bench of Justice S Ravindra Bhat observed, “What is important is the opinion of law of this Court, that when there is an insurable event which may result in liability, there should be no substantive breach of the conditions contained in the contract of insurance.” and Bela M Trivedi.

Comments made during the hearing: An appeal filed by United India Insurance Company Limited Challenging an order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, which dismissed the revision petition of the company challenging the order of the Rajasthan State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Circuit Bench at Bikaner.

As per the case, Sushil Kumar Godara, a resident of Rajasthan obtained an insurance policy from the insurer for his Bolero car somewhere in Punjab though he was a resident of Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan.

The provisional registration of a vehicle whose sum insured was 6.17 lakh had expired on 19 July 2011.

Since the complainant was a private contractor, he had to live out of town for business purposes.

On 28 July 2011, the complainant went to Jodhpur on business and stayed overnight at a guest house where his vehicle was parked outside the premises. In the morning he saw that the car had been stolen.

He lodged an FIR in Jodhpur accusing him of committing an offense under section 379 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code.

However, on November 30, 2011, the police filed a final report stating that the vehicle was not traceable.

The apex court observed that on the date of theft, the vehicle was driven/used without valid registration, which is a clear violation of sections 39 and 192 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

“This constitutes a fundamental breach of the terms and conditions of the policy, as held by this Court in Narinder Singh (Supra), empowering the insurer to reject the policy.

“This Court is of the opinion that the order of NCDRC cannot be maintained,” the bench said.