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TMI Blog1964 (9) TMI 73X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hich case the company shall be liable to repay on demand a rateable proportion on the premium for the unexpired term from the date of the cancelment. 2. The word company in this clause refers to the insurer, the respondent. Originally the policy did not afford any insurance against loss caused by persons taking part in riot or civil commotion but by subsequent agreements made from time to time it was extended to cover these riot risks. One of such agreements covered the riot risks occurring between July 18, 1947, and August 17, 1947. 3. It is not in dispute that from early 1947, the whole of Punjab including the town of Amritsar was disturbed by the serious riots and civil commotion which preceded the partition of India. On or about July 23, 1947, the godown at Bakarwana Bazar in Amritsar, in which the insured goods were stored, was looted and some of the goods were removed. Information of this loss was given by the appellant to the respondent and thereafter, on August 7, 1947, the respondent wrote to the owners of the goods as follows : ... please remove the goods . . . lying in godown at Bazar Bakarwana, Amritsar, to a safe locality. These stocks may be removed to ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... term suggested being implied, Clause 10 must be treated as void and ignored. 7. The contention of the appellant is based on the interpretation of Clause 10. Now it is commonplace that it is the court's duty to give effect to the bargain of the parties according to their intention and when that bargain is in writing the intention is to be looked for in the words used unless they are such that one may suspect that they do not convey the intention correctly. If those words are clear, there is very little that the court has to do. The court must give effect to the plain meaning of the words, however it may dislike the result. We have earlier set out Clause 10 and we find no difficulty or doubt as to the meaning of the language there used. Indeed the language is the plainest. The clause says This insurance may be terminated at any time at the request of the insured , and the insurance may also at any time be terminated at the instance of the company. These are all the words of the clause that matter for the present purpose. The words at any time can only mean at any time the party concerned likes. Shortly put, Clause 10 says either party may at its will termin ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ties. We venture to think that it would be difficult to imagine what would be a reasonable cause for terminating the policy. 9. Obviously the parties would be poles apart on that question and could not, therefore, have both intended, as suggested, that the policy would be terminable for a reasonable cause only. There is nothing here to show that the parties did not intend what they said. 10. Another passage from the same paragraph in Halsbury's Laws of England was read which stated that if the intention of the parties could be ascertained from the written instrument, the court would give effect to that intention notwithstanding ambiguities in the words used or defects in the operation of the instrument. This statement of the law is based on the principle that a deed shall never be void where the words may be applied to any intent to make it good. This rule also affords no assistance to the appellant for here, as we have already stated, there is no ambiguity in the words used or defect in the operation of the instrument. It is also plain to us that the policy is by no means void. 11. Next we were referred to Halsbury's Laws of England, volume 22, and the proposition ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ction however is wholly beside the point. The question before the Judicial Committee was not whether a particular termination of a policy was reasonable but of the interpretation of a clause in it. For that question only we have referred to that decision and on it we find that the view taken by us receives full support from the decision of the Judicial Committee. In that respect the two cases are indistinguishable. 13. Then it was said that what is called the contra proferentem rule should be applied and as the policy was in a standard form contract prepared by the insurer alone, it should be interpreted in a way that would be favourable to the assured. It is well known however that the rule has no application where there is no ambiguity in the words in the standard form contract: London and Lancashire Fire Insurance Company v. Bolands, [1924] A.C. 836, 848.. We have already stated that the words in Clause 10 give rise to no doubt as to their meaning. There is, therefore, no scope for applying that rule here. 14. Learned counsel next contended that in a deed where two clauses are repugnant to each other the earlier prevails and in support of that he referred us to Forbes v. G ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... dgment of the Madras High Court an appeal was preferred to this court and it held that the clause giving power to cancel the contract applied only when after the acceptance the railway had not placed any formal order for the supply of the goods at which stage no legal contract can be said to have been made and so the cancellation in question was not covered by that clause. This court, however, expressly reserved its opinion on the contention urged for the railway that the stipulation in the tender amounted to a term in the contract itself for the discharge of the contract and, therefore, was valid : see Union of India v. Maddala Thathiah, Civil Appeal No. 53 of 1961 decided on May 9, 1963 (unreported).. It would therefore appear that the court expressly left open the question whether the judgment of the Madras High Court was right. We may at this stage also notice Chotelal Lallubhai v. Champsay Umersey, A.I.R. 1923 Bom. 75., where it was held that a contract for sale of goods which provided that to cancel or not to cancel the sale for any reason depended on the seller , should be interpreted as if implying in that clause a term that the cancellation could only be for a good reas ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , imposed a condition of the shifting of the goods by the defendant company which condition if carried out would under the terms of the policy have brought it to an end. This term provided that the goods could not be shifted from the place where they were stated in the policy to be insured without the previous consent of the insurer. Assuming that the principle is applicable to the present case, as to which grave doubts may legitimately be entertained, it is in any case wrong to say that the condition if carried out would have brought the policy to an end for along with the condition about the shifting of the goods from the godown where they were stated in the policy to be insured, the respondent has offered to make an endorsement agreeing to the shifting which would have prevented the policy from lapsing. The insurer was doing no violence to the principle read from Stirling v. Maitland. 17. The next argument was that Clause 10 was bad as it gave more option to the insurer than to the assured. We express no opinion as to whether the clause would be bad if it did so, for we are clear in our minds that it did not. The argument that it did was based on the use of the word request ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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