E S I CORPORATION Vs. GOPI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question involved in this appeal is whether the employment injury sustained by a workman had resulted in permanent total disablement As the question was decided in the affirmative by the Employees' Insurance Court (for short 'the Insurance Court'), this appeal is filed by the concerned Regional Director of the E.S.I. Corporation.

(2.) The workman concerned was doing weaving work in a coir factory run by a cooperative society. He had a fall on 30-7-85 and sustained injury to his back bone. He was treated in the Medical College Hospital for a certain period. When he returned for work he was found not fit to do the same work, but his request for assignment of lighter work was not granted by the Society. He approached the E.S.I. Corporation and it was accepted as a case of "employment injury" and then he was referred to the Medical Board for assessing his disability. The Medical Board examined him and assessed his loss of earning capacity as 20%. The workman preferred an appeal before the Insurance Court challenging the assessment made by the Medical Board. The Insurance Court, in the appeal, enhanced the assessment to cent per cent. Hence this appeal.

(3.) The Insurance Court took the view that as the employer failed to provide "some lighter work" to the workman there was justification for awarding cent per cent disablement benefit to the workman. In support of the said finding, the Insurance Court relied on the decision of this Court in M.F.A. No. 389 of 1983.