[Cites 6, Cited by 0]

Delhi High Court

Sense Accu Tras Infra Jubi Alliance Pvt ... vs Neelam Rawat & Ors on 16 December, 2025

                          *      IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
                          %                              Judgment Reserved on: 10.12.2025
                                                         Judgment pronounced on: 16.12.2025
                          +      FAO 479/2017, CM APPL. 44567/2017 & CM APPL. 13314/2018
                                 SENSE ACCU TRAS INFRA JUBI ALLIANCE PVT LTD
                                                                                   .....Appellant
                                                Through:      Mr. Anuj Aggarwal, Ms. Kritika
                                                              Matta, Mr. Pradeep Kumar and Ms.
                                                              Bhumica Kundra, Advocates.

                                                versus

                                 NEELAM RAWAT & ORS
                                                                                   .....Respondent
                                                Through:      Mr. Hari Kishan and Mr. Akarsh
                                                              Sharma, Advocates.
                          CORAM:
                          HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE CHANDRASEKHARAN SUDHA
                                                JUDGMENT

CHANDRASEKHARAN SUDHA, J.

1. The present appeal under Section 30 of the Employee's

Compensation Act ("The EC Act") has been filed by respondent

no. 2 in Claim No. CEC-D/WD/10/2015/542, on the file of the

Commissioner, Employees' Compensation (District West),

Vishwakarma Nagar, Jhilmil Colony, Delhi 110095 assailing the

order dated 22.08.2017, whereby respondents one and two have

been jointly and severally held liable to pay compensation to the

claimant and directed them to deposit a sum of ₹ 7,95,083 together

with simple interest @ 12 per cent per annum with effect from

23.08.2017.

2. Unless otherwise specifically stated, the parties hereinafter

shall be referred to as they are described in the original

proceedings.

3. The facts pertaining to the present appeal are as follows:

Respondent no. 2 is engaged in the business of transportation, i.e.,

the carrying and forwarding of goods, and performs these activities

exclusively for respondent no. 1, who is the principal employer

and on whose behalf respondent no. 2 executes such work on a

contractual basis.

3.1. On 15.06.2015 at about 5.00 PM, the deceased, Harinder

Singh Rawat, was discharging his duties at the godown of

respondent no. 2 situated at Kundli Border, Lakhmi Piau, Janti

Road, Kundli, Sonepat, Haryana. He was working under the

instructions and supervision of Mr. Vinod Sood and Mr. Wilson

Chacko, officials of respondent no. 1. While performing his duties,

the deceased experienced uneasiness and severe chest pain and he

became semi-conscious. It is the case of the claimants that the said

condition arose due to the heavy stress of work and the nature of

duties including the demand of late-night duty, which posed

substantial risk to life.

3.2. Following the incident, the deceased was taken by Mr.

Wilson Chacko to Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra Hospital,

Narela, Delhi. However, his condition deteriorated and he was

declared dead at 7.45 PM. The claimants thereafter lodged a police

complaint on 20.07.2015 with the SHO, P.S. Kundli Border, Delhi.

3.3. The claimants approached both respondents' seeking

payment of compensation. But the respondents, instead of making

any payment, made false assurances. A notice dated 07.07.2015

demanding compensation was also served upon the respondents.

Yet no amount was paid. The claimants, then filed the claim

seeking a sum of ₹ 10,00,000 as compensation, together with

penalty equivalent to fifty percent of the compensation amount and

interest @ 12 % per annum from the date of the accident till the

date of payment.

3.4. Respondent no. 1, in their written statement, contended

that they had engaged respondent no. 2, M/s Sense Accu Trans

Infra Jubli Alliances India Pvt. Ltd., as its carrying and forwarding

agent and all responsibilities relating to the employment, service

conditions, and benefits of the personnel engaged by the agent rest

exclusively with latter. Respondent no. 1 therefore denied any

master-servant relationship with the deceased and contended that

they have been unnecessarily impleaded in the present

proceedings. It was also contended that the alleged incident did not

occur during working hours nor did it take place within the

premises of the godown. Respondent no. 2 therefore asserted that

no claim for compensation is maintainable, as the death was the

result of a natural cause and could not be treated as an accident

arising out of or in the course of employment.

3.5. Respondent no. 2, in their written statement, affirmed

that an agreement dated 08.01.2014 was executed between

respondent no. 1 and respondent no. 2 for a period of three years

commencing from 01.01.2014 for carrying and forwarding

services at Kundli, Haryana. The deceased, Harinder Singh Rawat,

was engaged in January 2014 as an overall in charge of the

warehouse, where his duties involved maintenance of stock

records and supervision of loading and unloading activities. It was

further contended that the nature of work did not involve any stress

and the warehouse was situated merely 7 to 8 kilometres from his

residence. Respondent no. 2 contended that on 15.06.2015 the

deceased suffered a heart attack and died a natural death

unconnected with his employment.

3.6. Respondent no. 2 contended that the essentials of

Section 3 of the EC Act have not been satisfied, as the claimants

had failed to establish any causal connection between the death

and the employment. It was also contended that the deceased was

undergoing treatment for heart ailment prior to the incident and

that this material fact had been concealed from the Commissioner.

Reliance was placed on the dictum in Jyothi Ademma v. Plant

Engineer, Nellore & Anr., AIR 2006 SC 2830, to contend that

where a workman dies solely due to a pre-existing disease or

natural causes without the employment contributing to or

accelerating the death, no liability can be ascribed to the employer.

3.7. On completion of pleadings, necessary issues were

framed. The parties went to trial on the basis of the aforesaid

pleadings. The claimant tendered her evidence by way of affidavit,

i.e., Ex. CW1/A in lieu of chief examination, accompanied by

documents exhibited as Ex. PW1/1 to Ex. PW1/4. Respondent no.

1 examined Dr. Mukesh Bharti, Medical Officer, as RW1, who

produced the document exhibited as Ex. R2W1/A. Respondent no.

2 examined two witnesses, namely, R2W1, Sh. Sushil Kumar Jain

andR2W1, Sh. Vinod Kumar. R2W1 filed his affidavit in evidence

as Ex. R2W1/A and placed on record exhibits Ex. R2W1/1 and

R2W1/2. R2W2 tendered his affidavit in evidence as Ex. R2W2/A

along with Ex. R2W2/1.

3.8. Upon hearing the parties and perusing the materials on

record, the Commissioner found that the claimants had proved

their case and hence proceeded to allow the claim.

4. Aggrieved by the aforesaid decision, respondent no. 2 has

preferred the present appeal whereby they challenge the decision

on the groundsthat the Commissioner failed to appreciate that the

claimants had not established any causal connection between the

employment and the death, which was a natural one unconnected

with the duties of the deceased, whose work was purely

supervisory in nature and involved no physical exertion or stress.

5. The learned counsel for respondent no.2 submitted that the

medical records from Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra Hospital

demonstrated that the deceased had been experiencing chest pain

for 2 days prior to the incident, thereby indicating negligence in

seeking timely treatment which caused the heart attack, rather than

any work-related cause.

5.1. It was further submitted that the claimants lodged a

complaint before the Station House Officer, Police Station Kundli

Border, Sonepat, District Sonepat, on 20.07.2015, almost one

month after the incident on 16.06.2015, which indicates that the

claim is a mere afterthought motivated solely by an attempt to

unjustly enrich themselves from the respondent.

5.2. It was also submitted that the claimants produced no

documentary evidence before the Commissioner to show that the

deceased ever suffered stress or strain during employment or to

substantiate that the heart attack had any connection with his work,

placing reliance on the dictum laid down in Shakuntala

Chandrakant Shreshti v. Prabhakar Maruti Garvali, (2007) 11

SCC 668.

6. Per contra, the learned counsel for the claimant supported

the findings of the Commissioner and adopted the reasoning

contained in the impugned decision. Reliance was placed on

Param Pal Singh v. National Insurance Co., (2013) 3 SCC

409by the learned counsel for the claimant to contend that, having

regard to the role of the deceased as a supervisor, the conditions of

work and the nature of his employment, including the heavy

workload, time-bound demands and repeated night shifts, a causal

connection must be inferred between the stress arising out of his

employment and the subsequent heart attack that resulted in his

death. Therefore, it was argued that the conclusion that no stress

arose out of the employment, as contended by Respondent No. 2,

or that there was no link between the work-related stress and the

subsequent heart attack, is wholly incorrect.

7. Both parties were heard and materials on record were

perused.

8. It is undisputed that the deceased died due to a heart

attack, a fact further corroborated by the death certificate marked

as Ex. PW1/4, which records the cause of death as cardiac failure

due to acute myocardial infarction. A myocardial infarction,

commonly referred to as a heart attack, occurs when there is a

significant reduction or complete cessation of blood flow to a

portion of the heart muscle. Medical science recognises several

contributing factors1, including smoking, hypertension, diabetes

mellitus, abdominal obesity and, notably, psychosocial factors

such as depression and stress2.

9. It is the case of the claimants that the heavy workload

combined with stringent time bound demands during the month of

June caused the deceased to experience substantial stress. Upon

examining the records, including the email placed on record and

Yusuf S, Hawken S, Ounpuu S, Dans T, Avezum A, Lanas F, McQueen M, Budaj A, Pais P, Varigos J, Lisheng L; INTERHEART Study Investigators. Effect of potentially modifiable risk factors associated with myocardial infarction in 52 countries (the INTERHEART study): case-control study. Lancet. 2004 Sep 11-17;364(9438):937-

52. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17018-9. PMID: 15364185.

Chan, Bernard, Thomas Buckley, and Geoffrey H. Tofler. "Emotional stress and physical exertion as triggers of acute myocardial infarction." The American Journal of Cardiology 203 (2023): 285-287.

the attendance details produced as Ex. PW1/1, it is evident that the

deceased was working for more than ten hours on almost every

working day. The testimony of PW1, the claimant, that her

husband was under great stress due to his work has not been

discredited. The attendance sheets and the timings rendered therein

have not been disputed. Though the respondents have taken up a

contention that the deceased was suffering from heart ailments, no

materials have been produced to substantiate the same. When the

respondents had taken up such a contention, the burden was on

them to establish the same. However, they failed in substantiating

or establishing the same.

10. Having regard to the materials on record, it must be

reasonably inferred that the heart attack suffered by the deceased

arose from the stress generated in the course of his employment.

The deceased experienced chest pain in the evening after having

spent the entire day discharging his duties in the office. This

circumstance, taken together with the nature of his work

responsibilities, reasonably establishes that the deceased was under

continuous work-related strain and exertion throughout the

day.RW1, the medical officer, in his cross examination admitted

that the deceased had elevated blood pressure levels at the relevant

time. Such elevated blood pressure is medically recognised as a

significant indicator of heightened physical and mental stress3. It

was not also brought out through RW1 that death occurred due to

pre-existing heart ailments. In the absence of any materials to the

said effect, it cannot be concluded that the deceased did have any

heart ailments even before the date of the incident. These facts,

taken cumulatively, satisfy the requirement of a proximate causal

link between the employment and the cardiac arrest, thereby

bringing the death within the statutory expression arising out of

and in the course of employment and attracting liability under

Section 3 of the EC Act.

Kulkarni S, O'Farrell I, Erasi M, Kochar MS. Stress and hypertension. WMJ. 1998 Dec;97(11):34-8. PMID:

9894438., Chan et al., "Emotional Stress and Physical Exertion as Triggers of Acute Myocardial Infarction." American Journal of Cardiology, 203, 285-287, URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjcard.2023.07.085

11. The contention regarding the alleged delay of nearly one

month in lodging a complaint with the police concerning the death

of the deceased is also immaterial insofar the said complaint was

filed only on the issue of alleged concealment of death and has no

relation with the question whether the death arose out of and in the

course of employment. The record clearly demonstrates that the

claimant had tried reaching out the respondents with regard to the

compensation on 07.07.2015, much earlier, than the said police

complaint. Therefore, it cannot be inferred that the claim is only an

afterthought or with any ulterior motive. It would also be

inappropriate and unrealistic to expect a grieving wife to comply

with the procedural formalities forthwith in the immediate