MARY Vs. REGIONAL DIRECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Order passed by the Employees Insurance Court, Kollam dated 28-9-2004 in Insurance Case No. 32 of 2002 is under challenge. Sri T. V. George appeared for the appellant and Sri Sandeep Raja represented the respondents. We note that the application had not received as much attention as it required, and the issue involved has to be subjected to a fresh consideration on all aspects. A remand of the matter therefore becomes essential. We may briefly note the facts of the case, as guidelines require to be issued for a proper adjudication of the disputed question.

(2.) Sri Maria Das, husband of Smt. Mary, the appellant was an employee covered by the Employees Insurance Scheme. The couple had four children, all of them girls. Sri Maria Das had met with an accident on 3-1-1984 which had led to his premature death on the date following. Although a road accident the, E.S.I. Corporation had recognised it as an employment injury and had sanctioned dependants' benefits to the widow and her four children by order dated 6-8-1984. Later, when information had reached the E.S.I. Corporation, that there was a remarriage of the appellant on 8-6-1987, the dependants' benefits to her had been discontinued. Nevertheless, as provided by the Act, benefits continued to be extended to the daughters till they attained the age of 18, the last of whom reached the said age on 26-10-2001.

(3.) The Insurance Case No. 32 of 2002 however came to be filed at the instance of Smt. Mary, wherein she had urged a contention that the stoppage of dependants' benefits to her was on a mistaken notion, since at no time there was a remarriage which could have interfered with her rights to continue to get dependants' benefits. According to her, a formal application had been made to the Corporation on 3-2-1999 requiring them to review the decision, but since no response was forthcoming, the application under S.75 of the Employees' State Insurance Act (hereinafter referred to as 'E.S.I. Act') had been filed. She submits that consequent to the death of her husband, she had preferred a claim for compensation before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal and there was likelihood of a sizeable compensation being received. The details of such proceedings are not divulged here. She averred that her in laws had schemed so as to get a portion of such compensation. With this view, she had been cajoled to enter into a property settlement, and the agreement as above had been registered on 8-6-1987. However, later she noticed that this was not a property settlement, but an agreement for marriage with the brother of late Sri Maria Das, Sri Yesudas. They had never lived together as husband and wife and she was never dependant of Sri Yesudas. Coming to know of the fraud played, she had executed another document on 13-10-1987 cancelling the earlier agreement. Reference is also made to still another document dated 27-2-1990 which was a registered agreement between herself and Sri Yesudas cancelling the marriage agreement of 8-6-1987. She had been misled by the relatives of her deceased husband and as a consequence, she stood to lose a life long benefit which otherwise might have been admissible as dependants' benefits. It was a case where Corporation was obliged to review their order and restart payment of dependants' benefits from the date on which it was discontinued. Relief in the said lines had been prayed for.