MADRAS STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD Vs. AMBAZHATHINGAL ITHACHUTTI UMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal preferred by the Madras State Electricity Board against the order dated 25 July 1962, of the Additional Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation, Madras, awarding compensation in a sum of Rs. 3,500 to the respondent, whose son met with an accident on 16 December 1959, in the dam construction in Niligris district, under the appellant, when he was working in the job of loading and unloading. He was taken to the hospital where he died on 18 December 1959, as a result of the accident.

(2.) THE report of the supervisor was that the deceased died of sickness, in the ordinary course, while he was in-patient in the hospital and did not meet with an accident while he was on duty. The report of the medical officer of the hospital where the deceased was admitted and treated was also filed in the case. The doctor stated that the deceased was complaining of chest pain and giddiness. He found some tenderness over the substernal area of the chest and lung signs in the form of rales and rhenche. Clinically, his heart was found to be enlarged. When he enquired the deceased about the pains, the deceased told him that he had occasional attacks of substernal pains. The doctor stated that the deceased died as a result of heart failure. He stated in his evidence that the disease, namely, enlargement of heart, might have been aggravated due to the physical over-strain while lifting stones. In his answer to the cross-examination, the doctor stated that even if the worker was taking complete rest he would have died as a result of his disease, that the employment in the case of the deceased was not a contributory cause for the death and that the employment did not accelerate his death.

(3.) DR. Selvarajan, who was examined on the side of the respondent to give expert opinion, stated that heart disease would get aggravated by undue strain in the body and that excessive strain on an already diseased heart would accelerate the disease. He farther stated that loading and unloading work was a job involving strain and that even a slightest physical or mental effort might accelerate heart disease.