‘Heart disease not unknown in India’: Gujarat High Court denies payout after man dies of cardiac arrest on duty

Background

• The victim, Abdulbaksh Rangrej, 52, was employed as a boiler attendant at Everchem Dyes Industries.
• His duties involved exposure to hazardous chemicals while manufacturing whitening agent Tinopol, and he also had to lift boxes containing Tinopol, the Gujarat High Court was informed.
• On December 31, 1997, while on duty, Rangrej suffered a cardiac arrest after complaining of chest pain to co-workers and passed away later that day at VS Hospital.
• The petitioners, the legal heirs of the victim, initially filed a claim under the Workman’s Compensation Act, 1923, before the labour court in Ahmedabad, which was dismissed in 2009.
• The present plea before the Gujarat High Court challenged that dismissal, while arguing that the death was a result of “sheer toil”, physical workload, and constant exposure to hazardous chemicals.
• Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Sachin Vasavada submitted that the workman commissioner, without looking into vital evidence, erroneously held that the deceased passed away only because of hard work and constant exposure to the hazardous chemicals in manufacturing Tinopol.

‘No post-mortem report, no relief’

• It appears that the petitioners averred a nexus of death of the deceased with employment injury on the ground that the deceased was suffering physical load as well as mental stress and trauma, which resulted in the death of the deceased, the Gujarat High Court observed.
• To prove such an averment, petitioners as well as co-workers entered into the witness box and examined themselves.
• None of them has, in unequivocal terms, deposed that the deceased was suffering from physical and mental stress and trauma, which resulted in the cardiac arrest that caused his death on the job.
• The petitioners have not produced any evidence on record to suggest that the deceased was suffering from physical stress and trauma.
• The claimants did not lead any evidence to link the aforesaid nexus of death with the employment injury or to establish that the aforesaid injury was an injury arising out of the employment of the deceased or it is occupational disease arising out of and in the course of the employment.
• No post-mortem report, which is very vital in these types of cases, was produced to support the case of the claimants.

‘No complaint of physical stress, trauma before death’

• Before the victim succumbed to a heart attack while on duty, at no point in time did he raise any complaint of physical stress and trauma or angina pain as a result of physical and mental stress and trauma.
• In the absence of specific evidence, non-granting of compensation in favour of the claimant by the learned workman commissioner is a fair, practicable and right approach, the Gujarat High Court noted.
• The petitioner’s advocate failed to point out that the deceased was not suffering from any disease before his death during employment.
• It is suggested that the death of the deceased due to a heart attack is an occupational disease arising out of and in the course of his employment, as presumably, he was suffering from physical and mental stress and trauma.
• The apex court in the case of Mackinnon Mackenzie And Company Private Limited v Ibrahim Mahmmed Issak held that it is a burden upon the claimants to prove that the accident or occupational disease arose out of and in the course of the employment.
• Though the petitioner is not required to prove by leading direct evidence, the onus rests upon the claimants to prove that injury – by accident or occupational disease – arose out of the course of the employment, the Gujarat High Court held.