New Delhi: The death of a person following heart attack will not be a ground for claiming compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, if cardiac arrest is not related to any job stress or strain, the Supreme Court has held.

Heart diseases among young persons are not unknown. "A disease of heart may remain undetected. A person may suffer mild heart attack but he may not feel any pain. There must thus be some evidence that the employment contributed to the death. It is required to be established that the death occurred during the course of employment," said a Bench consisting of Justices S.B. Sinha and Markandey Katju.

It laid down three norms for claiming accident compensation under the Act. "There must be a causal connection between the injury and the accident, and the accident and the work done in the course of employment; the onus is on the applicant to show that it was the work and the resulting strain which contributed to or aggravated the injury and if the evidence brought on record establishes a greater probability which satisfies a reasonable man that the work contributed to the causing of personal injury, it would be enough for the workman to succeed, but the same would depend upon the fact of each case."

Writing the judgment, Justice Sinha said an accident might lead to death but it must be proved that an accident occurred. Just because death occurred in the course of employment, it would not amount to accident. "Death must arise out of accident. There is no presumption that an accident has occurred. In a case of this nature, to prove that an accident has taken place, the factors which would have to be established inter alia are: stress and strain arising during the course of employment; nature of employment and injury aggravated by stress and strain."

Appeal dismissed

The Bench was dismissing an appeal by Shakuntala Chandrakant Shreshti against a Bombay High Court order, which reversed the award of compensation by the Commissioner under the Act for the death of her husband, who worked as vehicle cleaner. He died of cardiac arrest while getting down a vehicle after doing his duty. While the Commissioner held that heart attack was an accidental injury in the course of employment, the High Court said that it was not an accidental injury.

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