On 7 February 1966, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court (Hidayatullah J. authoring, with Gajendragadkar CJ, Wanchoo, V. Ramaswami and Satyanarayanaraju JJ.) settled the foundational canon of Indian insurance-contract interpretation: the court's task is to interpret the words in which the parties have expressed their contract — not to make a new contract, however reasonable, that the parties have not made themselves. A cover note issued 'subject to the usual conditions of the Society's policies' incorporates the full policy framework, including a termination clause, even before the formal policy issues. The judgment is the strict-construction landmark; supporting principles of uberrimae fidei and contra proferentem read alongside but trace their foundational SC authority to Mithoolal Nayak v. LIC (1962) for the disclosure duty. Sixty years on, every Indian insurance-contract dispute begins from the Chandumull Jain canon.
On 19 August 1999, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court (Saghir Ahmad and R.P. Sethi JJ.) held that motor-insurance contracts must be strictly construed; that statutory permit conditions under the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 are read into the insurance contract where the policy expressly so provides; and that carriage of hazardous goods on a permit limited to 'unhazardous goods' takes the loss outside the scope of cover. The District Forum's dismissal of the insured's consumer complaint was restored; the State Commission and NCDRC awards that had overridden the policy terms on equitable grounds were set aside. The judgment is the motor-insurance extension of the Chandumull Jain construction canon and a disciplinary correction of consumer-forum overreach.