Surat: A truck owner won a long-running insurance dispute after the Surat consumer commission ruled that the mere presence of an injured cleaner inside the crashed truck did not prove that he was driving it, and directed the insurer to pay the claim with interest.Surat District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (Main) directed ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co Ltd to pay Rs 19.75 lakh with interest to truck owner, Ratilal Patel, rejecting the insurer’s contention that the unlicensed cleaner was driving the vehicle.Patel had insured his truck for an insured declared value (IDV) of Rs 19.75 lakh and was covered under a policy valid from Sep 19, 2017, to Sep 18, 2018.The accident occurred on June 23, 2018, around 9.30pm while the truck was going from Bodeli to Surat. Near Kosamba, on the national highway, the driver, Arun Vasava, allegedly panicked when a bus attempted to overtake the truck in a rash manner.The complaint stated that Vasava jumped out of the moving vehicle fearing an accident. The truck then veered off the road and plunged into a ditch, causing extensive damage to the cabin. The cleaner, who had been seated beside the driver, got trapped inside and was injured.Police and the insurer were informed about the accident. An authorised dealer later assessed the repair cost at Rs 21.65 lakh. As the estimate exceeded the vehicle’s IDV, Patel sought settlement of the claim on a total-loss basis.The insurer rejected the claim in Aug 25, 2018, alleging misrepresentation of facts. It contended that the cleaner, who did not have a valid driving licence, had been driving the truck when the accident occurred.Patel’s advocate Shreyas Desai argued: “The licensed driver had been behind the wheel and jumped from the truck when he feared an accident. The cleaner was trapped in the cabin after the crash and his presence there could not, by itself, prove that he had been driving.”The commission accepted that argument and observed that the insurer could not conclude that the cleaner was driving merely because he was found trapped inside the vehicle after the accident.It further held that the insurance company failed to establish that Arun Vasava was not driving the truck.The forum directed ICICI Lombard to pay Rs 19.75 lakh to Patel with 8% annual interest from Nov 1, 2018. It also awarded Rs 3,000 towards mental agony and harassment and Rs 2,500 towards litigation costs.
