By IANS,
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Tuesday asked the Employees State Insurance Corporation’s (ESI) hospital to pay a monthly pension to a mineral water firm employee whose hand was crushed in accident at the factory and was amputated without his consent.
A division bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar asked the ESI to pay Lal Bahadur a monthly pension of Rs.2500 and also direct the Bisleri firm to retain him in his job.
The court did not decide on the compensation issue Tuesday but said it will pass the appropriate order in detail later when the ESI calculates the amount.
The court was hearing the plea of Lal Bahadur, who lost his right hand in an accident in Bisleri’s bottling plant last year. Bahadur had challenged the judgment of its single judge bench, which had earlier ordered Bisleri to continue paying him his salary of Rs.4,000 a month until death, and also stipulated the company not reduce his salary.
But Bahadur approached the division bench as he was not satisfied with the judgment of the single-judge bench and has demanded Rs.5 million as compensation.
Bahadur was working in Bisleri’s bottling plant in Punjabi Bagh in west Delhi when his hand got stuck in a machine last year. He was taken to the ESI Hospital in the area and his hand was amputated a few days later. The company apparently did not even pay for his medical expenses.
“You know what’s the pain when a finger is cut from a hand…in this case the petitioner has lost his hand. We wanted to know what relief the ESIC can give to him,” the court said while pulling up the ESI for adopting an “insensitive approach”.
Bahadur’s lawyer Monoher Singh Bakshi said: “His hand was badly crushed and he was immediately rushed to an ESI hospital in the area. A few days later his hand was amputated despite Bahadur’s refusal. The company did not even pay his medical expenses. It’s a case of gross negligence on behalf of the hospital and Bisleri.”