Consumer Commission asks insurance firm to pay Rs 9.24 lakh to man whose shop was gutted in fire

According to the complainant, as he was preparing for the upcoming festive season, on September 9, 2019, his shop was gutted in the fire accident. It was investigated and reported that short circuit in the immediate neighbouring shop – which is separated with the complainant’s shop by a wooden partition only – was the cause of the incident. The complainant suffered huge loss due to the fire.

Jindal’s counsel, advocate Nitin Verma told before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission that the incident was timely reported to the United India Insurance Company Private Limited on September 10 in 2019. Verma claimed that the insurance firm appointed a surveyor who visited the site of the fire accident, took the version of the complainant, and asked the complainant for the requisite documents. There were many goods whose bills were destroyed in the fire. As per the list bills, the purchase for the period of April 1, 2019 to September 9, 2019 was Rs 21,37,199.34 and sale was Rs 26,90,911.20, according to the complainant.

Jindal said that with bona fide intentions, he gave all the detail of the accident and loss incurred via documents to the surveyor immediately. Thereafter, the surveyor has submitted his report and assessed the claim of complainant as NIL on the grounds that there is no closing stock shown in the income tax return for the financial year 2018-19.

The complainant said that filing of NIL stock in the income tax return (ITR) 2018-19 was a human error and the regulation of Income Tax Act allows revision of the such errors. He also claimed that he has revised the ITR FY 2018-19 which has been acknowledged.

The United India Insurance Company, in its reply, submitted that the complainant while casting trading account as on September 9, 2019 took opening of Rs 36,93,680, however, in the previous ITR for FY 2018-19, the complainant had shown the stock as on March 31, 2019 to be NIL, and when confronted with the question as to from where did this figure of Rs 36,93,680 come, the complainant had no answer. Also, it was submitted that the complainant has miserably failed to prove that the goods which were provided to the surveyor for assessment were the stock lying on the date of incident.

The commission, after hearing the matter, said that the surveyor has assessed estimated loss of Rs 22,09,312.17 and net liability of the insurer towards the damaged stock have been worked out to Rs 8,79,855. The surveyor report has covered all the critical points. Thus, we do not find any reason to interfere with the report of surveyor with regard to assessment of damage caused by fire incident being correct.

The Commission thus ordered the insurance company to pay an amount of Rs 8,79,855 to the complainant, along with Rs 30,000 as compensation and Rs 15,000 as cost of litigation.