MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has dismissed a petition by a Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) agent seeking to revoke the termination of her agency by the insurer and allow her to deposit policy premiums with LIC.
LIC in its representation said that the agent had failed to deposit collected premiums and instead produced “certain cheques issued by her husband from his bank account”, a few of which bounced. According to LIC, a total of 19 cheques were issued by the petitioner and six of them were dishonoured, which LIC viewed as a “serious misconduct”.
However, petitioner G Thanaseela of Tirunelveli, an LIC agent at the Kulithurai branch office contested LIC’s decision to cancel her agency licence citing that she had handed over the premium cheques to an LIC employee at the Kuzhithurai branch.
In her response to LIC’s notice, she had stated that after collecting policy premiums from seven policy holders, she handed over the money to Sivakumar, a staff of the Kuzhithurai branch, to deposit the same to the LIC account, as the branch was heavily crowded. But Sivakumar had not deposited the amount and instead collected cheque leafs from the petitioner’s husband and filled the amount before submitting them at the LIC office, she alleged.
Hearing the case, Justice S Nagamuthu said that if at all there had been any fraud committed by Sivakumar, there should have been a complaint either from the Thanaseela or her husband. Further, the judge held that there was nothing illegal or irregular in LIC’s decision as according to LIC rules, the agent had to deposit premiums as soon as collection was made. Hence, the petition was dismissed.