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2.Whether the claim of the Insurance Company that the loss occurred was due to bad maintenance of plaintiff's building is correct?

3.Whether the plaintiff is entitled to damages at Rs.5,53,720/- as claimed by them?

4.Whether the plaintiff has established the quantum of damages?

11. Since both the appeals arise out of the same suit, both the appeals are taken together and disposed of by a common judgement.

12. Mr.N.Venkatraman, the learned counsel appearing for M/s.S.Nageswaran and Narichania, the learned counsel for the Insurance Company would vehemently contend that unless the plaintiff establishes, that heavy rain/thunder storm that lashed the City of Chennai on 22.11.2005 was the proximate cause for the loss caused to the goods, the Insurance Company cannot be held liable for the loss. The learned counsel relying upon the survey report as well as the admission made by the partner of the plaintiff as PW1 that the cause for loss admittedly is seepage of water in the building and the said eventuality i.e. loss due to the seepage is not covered by the policy conditions. Therefore, according to the learned counsel, the Insurance Company cannot be held liable to make good the loss.

13. The learned counsel, taking me through the relevant portion of the policy namely Ex.A2, would contend that what is covered by the policy is loss, destruction or damage directly caused by storm, cyclone, typhoon, tempest, hurricane, tornado, flood or inundation excluding those resulting from earthquake or other convulsions of nature and would contend that seepage of water due to whatever reason is not covered by the policy. According to the learned counsel, seepage had occurred in the first floor of the building therefore, it cannot be said that loss has been caused due to flooding or inundation.

 It was observed that stock mainly silk and woolen carpets, cotton dhurees and a piece of furniture were damaged by rain water because of very heavy down pour. The cause of seepage appeared to have resulted from an extraordinary heavy and continuous down pour in the city during the dates of reported damage in Mount Road and the neighborhood area. The heavy rain and water inundation in Mount Road and other areas in the city and other places in the districts of Tamilnadu were well reported in the newspapers and TV. The State Government is disbursing relief in cash and kind. In fact the most of the Tamilnadu suffered due to heavy down pour and release of water, overflowing and breach of banks of storage tanks, rivers and canals. The central Government team had appraised the damage and State Government had demanded a very huge sum of Rs.13700 crores to alleviate the loss suffered by the poor and agriculturists. Relying heavily on the observations of the surveyor, learned counsel would claim that the seepage had occurred only due to extraordinary heavy and continuous rain in the City during the relevant days. The learned counsel would further contend that the policy itself was taken in August, 2005 and it expired on midnight 24.08.2006.

19. In the case on hand, the survey report is very clear, that the cause of seepage is due to heavy rain fall. In fact the surveyor had specifically observed that the cause of seepage appears to have resulted from an extraordinarily heavy and continuous down pour in the City, particularly in Mount Road and neighbouring areas. There are also other documents in the form of news paper reports, weather reports etc. to show that there was in fact very heavy rain during the relevant period in the City of Chennai. Therefore, it is clear that the loss caused was due to seepage caused by heavy rain fall.