Wednesday, December 12, 2012


ICICI Lombard to pay Rs 36.98 Lakh as 

compensation


New Delhi: A 40-year-old man, who suffered 90 per cent permanent disability in a road mishap involving a rashly-driven car, has been awarded a compensation of Rs 36.98 lakhs by a Motor Accident Claims Tribunal.
The tribunal directed ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited, with which the offending vehicle was insured, to pay Rs 36,98,911 to city resident Manjeet Singh.
"As per the FIR and charge sheet, the driver was under the influence of intoxication while driving the vehicle.
"The documents of criminal case which have been placed on record are prima facie evidence of the fact that Singh suffered injuries on account of rash and negligent driving of the offending vehicle by the driver," MACT Presiding Officer Harish Dudani said.
Singh told the tribunal that the accident had taken place on the night of July 1, 2009 when a Santro car had hit him as he was crossing a road near Dhaula Kuan here.
He added that due to the impact he sustained grievous injuries and had to be rushed to a nearby hospital.
He said he was rendered paralysed from below the waist, has lost control of his bowel movements and is incapable of working and has been declared to be suffering from 90 percent permanent disability.
Singh also told the tribunal that he was working as a senior programmer with a company here and was earning a salary of Rs 15,570 per month.
The driver and owner of the car, Shaleen Bhatnagar and Mani Padma respectively, contented before the tribunal that the accident had taken place as 
Singh was negligent and careless towards traffic rules.

Insurance firms being probed for evasion of service tax


New Delhi: Several insurance firms and companies are being probed for suspected evasion of service tax and recoveries have been made in some cases, Finance Minister P Chidambaram told Lok Sabha today.
During Question Hour Chidambaram provided a list of such insurance companies and firms which are suspected to have evaded service tax or found after investigations to have engaged in financial wrongdoings.
"In cases where investigation has been completed, show cause notices have been issued. Some cases have been adjudicated and demands of service tax confirmed. Appeals against some orders are pending before the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal," Chidambaram said.
He said recoveries have been made in some cases.
"At this stage, it may not be possible to quantify the exact tax liability in each case," he said.
Seven insurance companies were found evading service tax in 2009-10, nine in 2010-11 and ten in 2011-12.
In 2012-13 (up to October) eight companies have been found guilty of service tax evasion.
These are: Bharat Reinsurance Company, IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Services Limited, Apollo DKV Insurance Company Limited, DLF Premierico Life Insurance Company, Aviva Life Insurance Company India Limited, Sri Ram Life Insurance,
Sahara India Life Insurance Corporation, Reliance Life Insurance Company Limited, Chidambaram said in his written reply.

ICICI Lombard to pay Rs 5.13L towards repair of damaged truck

New Delhi: ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co Ltd has been directed by a consumer forum here to pay Rs 5.13 lakh to a policy holder for rejecting his claim against repair charges for his truck damaged in an accident.
The New Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum held that the insurance company had relied on the "fabricated" story of its surveyor to reject the policy holder's claim for reimbursement of repair charges for his damaged truck.
"Opposite party (ICICI Lombard) deliberately avoided to make the payment to the workshop owner when insurance was cashless except for the cost of plastic parts which would be borne by complainant (policy holder).
"Further it has been also noticed that opposite party arbitrarily denied the claim under the shelter of fabricated story of surveyor that the driver was different which is totally unlawful, deficiency of service and breach of contract.
"Opposite party is directed to pay Rs 4,63,814. We also award Rs 50,000 as compensation for harassment and litigation expenses to complainant," said the bench of C K Chaturvedi.
The complaint against ICICI Lombard had been filed by Delhi resident Lekh Raj who had said his Tata Truck was insured with the insurance company for the period from March 29, 2008 to March 28, 2009.
His truck was damaged in an accident in May 2008 and when he had sent the invoice of repair charges to the insurance
company, it had rejected his claim and he had to pay for the repairs from his pocket, Raj had said.
ICICI Lombard had contended in its defence that the claim was rejected because its surveyor had told it that the truck
was being driven by someone else and not the person whose license was submitted by Raj in his claim
.

Life insurance penetration in India higher than global average

New Delhi: The government today said that life insurance penetration in India was higher than the world average in 2010.

"Life insurance penetration in India was higher than the world's average in 2010 and the combined average is higher than Brazil and Russia and most of other countries of Asia including Bangladesh, Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka," Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
"The government periodically receives proposals for providing tax incentives, inter alia, for investments in insurance and mutual funds and examination of such proposals is a part of an on-going process," he added.
In a separate response, Meena said, Irda has informed that no foreign company is presently functioning in India.
However, foreign companies are allowed as joint venture partners in the Indian insurance industry with a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap of 26 per cent and at present 38 private insurance companies are functioning in India along with their joint venture partners, he said.
In another reply, Meena said the pay scales of employees in Public Sector Banks (PSBs) are determined as per the agreement between the management and Associations/Unions every five years.
"Besides the pay, employees in banks are also entitled to a number of other allowances and benefits. The pay scale of the Central Government employees are finalised by Government taking the recommendations of Central Pay Commission into consideration and these pay scales are reviewed generally after ten years," he said.
The terms and conditions of service of Central Government employees and Bank

employees are entirely different and are regulated in terms of the respective service conditions, Meena said, adding that hence, no comparison can be drawn between pay structure of Central Government employees and of bank employees.
To another query, Meena said RBI has initiated several measures to check the menace of counterfeiting of banknotes.
These measures include running education campaigns for members of the public and cash handlers so as to facilitate detection of counterfeits.
RBI has been incorporating new security features and designs in the bank notes to stay ahead of the counterfeiters, Meena said, adding that new security features were added to banknotes in all denominations during the year 2005-06.
Instructions have been issued to banks to disburse only sorted and genuine notes through their counters/ATMs, he added.

Court refuses to quash charges against insurance official

New Delhi: The plea of a private insurance firm official to set aside the charges of cheating several members of a family of over Rs 4.5 lakh has been dismissed by a sessions court.

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Garg dismissed the appeal of former Senior Sales Manager Arvind Sagar of Bajaj Alliance Life Insurance Company Ltd, against the trial court's order framing charges of cheating and forgery against him.
According to the prosecution, Sagar had taken Rs 4,69,900 from complainant Sachin Bansal and his family members towards premium of seven insurance policies in 2007.
It said the complainant came to know from the insurance consultant of the company that the accused neither deposited the amount against these policies nor he issued any receipt to them.
Sagar allegedly had later on issued forged and fabricated receipts to the complainant against some of these policies.
The accused had challenged the trial court's order on framing of charges against him on the ground that Bansal was not the victim of any offence because he himself had surrendered the policy and his other family members had taken back the money deposited with the company.
He also alleged that he had resigned from the company in June 2007.
The court rejected his contentions saying that on the basis of the document submitted by the accused, it was not possible to conclude that he did not at all misappropriate any amount against these polices and deposited the requisite amount in the company.
"In view of the aforesaid reasons, I find no illegality and impropriety in theorder of the trial court. Revision petition is found without merit and it is accordingly dismissed," the ASJ said.