Supreme Court Dismisses Moneylife Foundation's PIL Against Life Insurance Corporation’s Jeevan Saral Policy

The Supreme Court has refused to entertain Money Life Foundation's plea alleging that the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) misled and cheated its consumers to the tune of more than Rs 1 lakh crore, particularly senior citizens, through its Jeeval Saral Policy.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi took the position that the issue cannot be dealt with through a PIL under Article 32 at the instance of a non-governmental NGO like Money Life Foundation.

The Money Life had stated that LIC’s Jeevan Saral policy are not in a position to raise the dispute individually, and hence were forced to join hands together as an NGO.

However, the Supreme Court bench stuck to its stand and dismissed the case after failing to be convinced by the locus standi of the Money Life Foundation.

Earlier, the Money Life Foundation’s petition had claimed that around 5 crore policyholders had lost a big chunk on their principal investment and that several complaints had been received from senior citizens.

The PIL had sought the return of the premium of the policy-holders with an 8% interest.

The original plea had alleged that the LIC Jeevan Saral policy was arbitrarily designed, and therefore, there was no emphasis on due diligence aspect due to which gullible customers were misled through incorrect proposal forms.

Petitioners had also contended that policy holders tend to get less than half of what they paid as premium for ten or more years and that the policy gave negative returns to the higher age group though they purchased the policy for the purpose of investment.