Mohali: Factory worker’s widow wins six-year battle for benefits
The pension will be paid retrospectively since Avtar Singh’s death, along with 9% interest, totaling around ₹9 lakh, along with a compensation of ₹25,000
Dismissing the appeal of the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), the State Consumer Redressal Commission of Punjab has directed it to start paying a monthly pension of ₹12,348 to the widow of a factory worker who was killed in an accident while heading to work in June 2017.
The pension will be paid retrospectively since Avtar Singh’s death, along with 9% interest, totaling around ₹9 lakh, along with a compensation of ₹25,000.
Paramjeet Kaur, the widow of Avtar Singh, who was 35 years old when he died, had submitted before the commission that her husband worked for M/s Nahar Industrial Enterprises Limited, Lalru, as a senior operator (bleaching).
As per her counsel Jasbir Singh, on June 28, 2017, Avtar had left home for work, when he met with an accident on the Ambala-Chandigarh highway near Premnagar in Lalru.
Avtar’s employer submitted an accident report, along with statements of two witnesses, to the manager of the local ESIC office in Lalru for grant of dependent benefits to his family.
But on September 9, 2020, the ESIC branch informed Kaur that the case was not an employment injury, while ignoring all provisions of the ESI Act, 1948, dealing with cases arising out of employment injury, the counsel submitted.
Aggrieved by this decision, Kaur filed a consumer complaint before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Mohali, on December 14, 2020.
The district commission decided the case in Kaur’s favour on March 1, 2023, and directed the opposite parties to pay/release all admissible benefits to her from the date of her husband’s death, along with interest at 9% per annum.
The opposite parties were further ordered to pay a compensation of ₹25,000 to Kaur for mental harassment and agony, as well as litigation expenses, within 30 days from the receipt of a certified copy of the orders.
Kaur’s counsel informed the state commission that the regional director of ESIC, instead of releasing the dependent benefits to the family, filed an appeal on February 11, 2023, against the orders of the district commission, citing a number of judgments that have no remote connection with the present complaint.
Dismissing ESIC’s appeal on October 25, 2023, the state commission, led by justice Daya Chaudhary, held that there was no merit in the contentions raised by them. The order passed by the district commission was based on a proper appreciation of evidence produced by both parties as well as contentions, the state commission held.
