Employees State Insurance Scheme claim valid in natural death at workplace: HC

MUMBAI: In a judgment that will impact lakhs of people registered under the Employees State Insurance Scheme (ESIS), the Bombay high court has ruled that a dependent of an employee who dies a natural death at the workplace is eligible for compensation.
Terming death due to a heart attack at work as "an employment injury'', the high court has directed the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) to pay a widow monetary benefits that she is eligible to under the scheme within four weeks.
On September 5, 2013, a division bench of Justice V M Kanade and Justice K R Sriram allowed a petition by the widow, Bhagyashree Mahadik, challenging rejection of her claim. Her husband, Bharguram (50), died of a heart attack while at work on March 27, 2012. He was employed with Dhanwantari Engineers as a fitter on a salary and enrolled under ESIS by his employer.
ESIC rejected Bhagyashree's claim saying her husband had died of a heart attack, which cannot be termed as employment injury. It also produced a certificate by a senior state medical commissioner which stated that Bharguram died a natural death and that there was no involvement of stress or strain at work. The judges, though, called this "a cryptic opinion".
The judges said it was an "unfortunate case of a widow having to knock the doors of the high court to recover an insurance claim'' from ESIC. They relied on a Punjab and Haryana high court judgment on the presumption of death as an accident in the absence of evidence to the contrary. They also cited a Madras High Court judgment, which ruled that the objective of the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, is to provide certain benefits to employees or dependents in case of sickness, maternity and employment injury. They, therefore, concluded that Mahadik's "death happened only during course of employment". The bench set aside ESIC's communication rejecting the widow's claim and directed it to pay her eligible benefits in four weeks.