On 27th October, a bench of Delhi High Court consisting Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva, held that the Employee Compensation Act is a beneficial legislation for the purposes of providing some respite to the family of the deceased who passes away in an accident at the working place. The bench also added that a delay in filing application for restoration a lawful claim should not be permitted to be defeated.

Facts of the case:

Appellant, who is the legal heir of the deceased impugns the order dated 19.06.2020 whereby the application of the appellant seeking restoration of the claim petition dismissed in default, had been rejected as her advocate who did not appear when the matter was listed.

The background of the case is that the petition was filed by the appellant on account of the death of her son who was employed in the factory of the respondent No.1. As per the claim petition the son died on account of electrocution in the factory premises where it is alleged that there were open wires and unrepaired electricity connection in the factory

Contention of the appellant:

The following contention has been submitted by the appellant:

  1. It was submitted that the appellant herself had appeared on an earlier occasion and was under an impression that the review petition filed by the respondents had been dismissed and the matter was proceeding.
  2. It was further submitted that she became aware of the dismissal of her claim petition only on 02.08.2019 and accordingly on 07.08.2019 subject application for restoration was immediately filed.

Contention of the respondent:

The counsel for the respondent submitted that that there is no plausible explanation given by the appellant for not filing the restoration application within time.

Observation of the court:

The following observation has been made by the court:

  1. It was observed that the claimant had been appearing on all dates in person. . On the said date i.e. 12.09.2018 the order records that none had appeared for the claimant and held that claimant was not interested in pursuing the matter and accordingly dismissed the claim petition in default.
  2. The order of 12.09.2018 records that despite availing last opportunity claimant failed to appear and file counter submissions and the opportunity was closed.

Based on the above, the court held that the order is clearly erroneous in as much as there was no response to be filed by the claimants on the said date. Accordingly, the impugned order dated 19.06.2020 is set aside. It was also directed that the claim petition is restored to its original number on the record of the Commissioner.

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