Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court has held that the Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) was not liable to pay compensation to dependants of an employee who dies of natural causes while on duty.The HC quashed an order passed in Dec 2010 by the ESI court directing ESIC to pay dependency benefit to the family members of one Raman Patel, who died due to a heart attack during his working hours. In this case, Patel was employed with Bajaj Processors as a fitter mechanic, and he was covered under the ESIC. During his shift on Sep 9, 2004, he complained of chest and abdomen pain. He was taken to a hospital, where he died in the evening. The post-mortem report revealed that Patel died of cardiorespiratory arrest due to coronary heart disease. Patel’s family claimed insurance for his death, but ESIC rejected the claim. The family moved the ESI court for the dependency benefits/insurance, and the court allowed the family’s application in Dec 2010 and directed ESIC to pay insurance to the family. The ESIC challenged this order before the HC, with its advocate Sachin Vasavada arguing that a heart attack is not an employment injury, and hence the dependants of the deceased were not entitled to compensation. He contended that the only question in this case was whether a heart attack being simplicitor cause of death can be considered as employment injury within Section 2(8) of the Act. Vasavada contended that there was no evidence on record to suggest that the deceased was suffering from physical stress and trauma and which developed heart disease. The family of the deceased opposed ESIC’s appeal. After the hearing, the HC said that employment injury means that it should be a personal injury to an employee either caused by an accident or an occupational disease arising out of and in the course of the employment. There was no evidence linking the nexus of death with employment injury in this case, the HC said. While allowing ESIC’s appeal, Justice J C Doshi stated, “…in absence of evidence proving the nexus between the occupational disease arising out of and in the course of the employment and death, the ESI Act cannot grant any dependency benefit to an employee.”
