In Brief
A policyholder purchased a vehicle with temporary registration that expired on 19 July 2011. Nine days later, he drove it to Jodhpur for business, parked it outside a guest house overnight, and found it stolen the next morning. He had not applied for permanent registration. The insurer refused the claim on several grounds, including use without valid registration. The consumer commission directed payment, but the Supreme Court reversed this decision. The Court held that driving a vehicle without valid registration after temporary registration expires constitutes a fundamental breach of insurance policy conditions, entitling the insurer to repudiate the claim, regardless of whether the vehicle was being driven when stolen.
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