Insurer has to compensate kin of driver who died while sleeping inside lorry: K'taka HC
Bengaluru, Sep 21: Disposing an appeal filed in 2010, the High Court of Karnataka has ruled that the driver of a lorry who died while sleeping inside the vehicle due to a heart attack, was still entitled to the compensation payable by insurer of the vehicle.
Eranna, a lorry driver, had died at Idya village near Suratkal where he had halted the vehicle and was sleeping. He died of cardiac arrest which the subsequent post-mortem report proved.
The insurance company claimed that he had "died due to cardiac failure and not due to accidental death and he was taking intoxicated drugs, which is not covered under the policy", and hence it was not liable to pay the compensation.
Dismissing this contention, the HC said: "Usage of the vehicle does not mean that at the time of his death he need not necessarily drive the vehicle, but in casual connection of his employment he was sleeping in the lorry."
"While taking rest he suffered heart attack and hence, very contention of insurance company cannot be accepted that it is not liable to pay the compensation," the court said.
The National Insurance Company had approached the High Court against the order of the Commissioner for Workmen Compensation, Bagalkote. In his order on August 20, 2009, the Commissioner had awarded a compensation of Rs 3,03,620 to the wife and three minor children of the deceased, payable by the insurance company.
The judgement delivered by Justice H P Sandesh recently pointed out that Eranna "was sleeping in the vehicle itself and the fact that he was working the very same day is not in dispute and the owner has also admitted that he died during the course of employment."
Citing an earlier judgement of the HC, the court said that "driving job is undoubtedly a tension filled job, particularly, to cope up with present day traffic and other things. There cannot be any presumption that even when a person dies while actually working in the job that his death may not be due to employment, but may be due to something else. Such presumption is nothing short of a perversity."
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Sharad Pawar praised RSS after seeing how it burst fake narrative balloon of LS polls: Fadnavis
Nagpur, Jan 10: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday said NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar praised the RSS after realising how the outfit managed to overcome the fake narrative spread by the opposition in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The opposition had claimed BJP wanted to win 400 seats to change the Constitution and end reservations, a narrative which BJP leaders later claimed hit the party hard.
On Pawar praising the RSS recently, the CM said the MVA was successful in creating a fake narrative during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
"When assembly polls were approaching, many people from diverse fields who are inspired by the RSS played their role and burst the balloon of this fake narrative. Sharad Pawar saheb is very intelligent. He would have certainly studied this aspect. He realised that this (RSS) is not a regular political power but a nationalist power. In any competition it is good to praise others," he added.
That is why Pawar may have praised the RSS, Fadnavis said.
Speaking at an interaction with senior editor Vivek Ghalsasi at Late Vilasji Fadnis Jivhala programme here, Fadnavis also said he had asked for organisational work when Eknath Shinde was made chief minister in June 2022, but senior leaders asked him to join the government.
He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him not to behave like an extra-constitutional authority in the government.
He said the decision to become deputy chief minister on the command of the party leadership earned him a lot of praise from the cadre.
After the massive mandate the ruling alliance received in the 2024 assembly polls, Fadnavis said people and party workers would not have been happy if the CM was not from the BJP.
Shinde himself agreed within minutes that the CM must be from the BJP, which itself got 132 seats and was close to a majority of its own in the 288-member assembly, he added.
On Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray meeting him during the winter sessions of the legislature in Nagpur, Fadnavis said he had announced he would not indulge in politics of revenge after becoming CM and all leaders responded positively to it.
On chances of the NCP (SP) and NCP coming closer or reuniting, Fadnavis said, "If you see the developments that took place from 2019 to 2024, I realised never say never and anything can happen. Uddhav Thackeray goes to some other party and Ajit Pawar comes to us. In politics anything can happen though I am not saying this should happen."
He praised BJP leader Arun Gujarati from whom he learnt patience, which he claimed was an important quality in politics along with the ability to take criticism.
In a lighter vein, he said, "I only get angry when I am hungry. If you see me angry then give me something to eat and my anger will go away."
