Oriental Insurance Company Limited vs Karmi Devi And Others

Sandeep Sharma, J.

Instant appeal filed under Section 30 of the Employee’s Compensation Act, 1923 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), lays challenge to award dated 18.07.2018, passed by the Employee’s Compensation Commissioner, Court No.1, Ghumarwin, District Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh, in E.C. Act case No.10/02 of 2016/11, whereby Court below while holding respondents No.1 and 2 (hereinafter referred to as the claimants) entitled for compensation, saddled appellant-Insurance Company with liability to pay compensation to the tune of Rs.2,75,562/- alongwith simple interest at the rate of 12% per annum w.e.f.09.05.2010. Learned Court below also awarded sum of Rs. 5000/- in favour of the claimants as funeral expenses payable by appellant-Insurance Company.

Precisely, the facts of the case, as emerge from the record are that deceased Amin Chand was employed by respondent No.3, Sh. Vinod Kumar as worker in his sand mine, but unfortunately on 9.4.2010 ,at 10.00 AM deceased Amin Chand fell down from the height and suffered multiple injuries. Though, above named deceased was taken to hospital, but unfortunately he succumbed to the injuries. Since deceased succumbed to injuries during the course of the employment, his LRs i.e. respondent Nos. 1 and 2 and 4 to 7 filed petition under Section 22 of the Employee’s Compensation Act, praying therein for compensation.

Learned Court below on the basis of the pleadings as well as evidence led on record, held claimants entitled to compensation to the tune of Rs.2,75,562/- alongwith simple interest at the rate of 12% per annum from the date of the accident. Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with aforesaid award passed by learned court below, appellant-Insurance Company has approached this Court in the instant proceedings, praying therein to set-aside aforesaid award.

Having heard learned counsel representing the parties and perused the material available on record vis-à-vis reasoning assigned in the impugned award, this Court finds no illegality and infirmity in the same and as such, no interference is called for. This Court finds that at the time of the accident deceased was in receipt of Rs. 3600/- per month and as such, Court below rightly calculated the compensation on the basis of aforesaid income. It is well established on record that respondent No. 1, Smt. Karmi Devi and respondent No.2, Smt. Jai Dei, were dependent upon the deceased employee and as such, Court below having taken note of age of the deceased applied multiplier of 153.09 as per schedule IV of the Act. Similarly, no illegality can be said to have been committed by the Court below inasmuch as it proceeded to award Rs.5000/- as funeral expenses as per Section 4(4) of the Act. Similarly, this Court finds no merit in the contention of learned counsel for the appellant-Insurance Company that interest, if any, ought to have been ordered to be paid by the employer because bare perusal of insurance policy placed on record as EX.PW5/A, nowhere suggests that there was any exclusion clause, specifically indicating therein the fact that interest, if any, shall not be payable by the Insurance Company.

Consequently, in view of the above, this Court finds no illegality and infirmity in the impugned award and as such, same is upheld. The present appeal fails and is dismissed accordingly.

Pending applications, if any, also stands disposed of.