High Court Division · Civil Appellate Jurisdiction
Cosmos Sea Foods Limited v Sonar Bangla Insurance and others
First Appeal 719/2019 · Appeal dismissed · Decided 8 September 2026
Cosmos Sea Foods Limited, a shrimp exporter, sued its insurers for Taka 16 crore under a policy covering fire, lightning and flood risks to its shrimp stock in cold storage. In June 2013 a fire from a short circuit in the electric panel board caused an ammonia gas pipe to leak. The insurers paid the separate building and machinery claim but refused the stock claim, relying on a joint survey report that the shrimp rotted from water pumped in by the fire service, not from fire. The Joint District Judge, 1st Court, Khulna dismissed the suit. On appeal, the High Court Division rejected the insurers' unpleaded plea of concealment of material facts, and held that not objecting to the survey before the regulator did not bar a civil court challenge. But the fire never reached the cold storage, the plaintiff took no steps to repair the leak or protect the stock, and the water was used to remove ammonia gas, not to put out fire. The appeal was dismissed.
- Whether the loss of a frozen shrimp stock, rotted by water pumped into a cold storage by the fire service to remove leaked ammonia gas, was a loss caused by fire within an insurance policy covering fire, lightning and flood.
- Whether the insurer could avoid the policy for concealment of material facts not pleaded or proved.
- Whether failure to object to a joint survey report before the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority bars a challenge to it in the civil court.
- Loss of an insured stock caused by water thrown by the fire service to remove leaked ammonia gas, and not to put out fire, is not a loss caused by fire under a policy covering fire, lightning and flood risks.
- Ammonia gas does not fall within the definition of fire.
- An insured's failure to object to a joint survey report before the Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority does not disentitle it from challenging the legality and accuracy of that report in the civil court.
- An insurer cannot rely on alleged concealment of material facts that was not specifically pleaded in the written statement or proved by documents, since in a civil suit no evidence can be adduced outside the pleadings.
- The trial court's dismissal of the money suit disclosed no illegality or irregularity.
In the absence of claim that fire brigade threw water inside the cold storage to put off fire we are unable to accept the submissions of the learned Advocate for the appellant that the cause of damage of the shrimp stock was fire.
