Beyond Sympathy: When Company Policy Trumps an Employee’s Medical Crisis 

The Gauhati High Court dismissed a petition by Oil India Limited engineer Udipta Mech seeking reimbursement for a Rs 4 lakh Tinnitus Masker and overseas treatment, ruling that company medical rules cannot be rewritten out of judicial sympathy. The court held that since the 2018 Medical Attendance Rules explicitly list “hearing aid” with a Rs 50,000 cap but omit the Tinnitus Masker, the exclusion was deliberate, and foreign treatment is only covered for employees on official duty abroad. Justice Arun Dev Chaudhury emphasized that while the court sympathized with Mech’s condition, sympathy cannot substitute for statutory authorization, and medical reimbursement schemes are fiscally calibrated contracts that must be interpreted strictly rather than expansively based on medical desirability alone.

Beyond Sympathy: When Company Policy Trumps an Employee’s Medical Crisis 

The Human Cost of a Rigid Rule: An OIL Engineer’s Fight for Health and the High Court’s Harsh Verdict 

In the sterile, fluorescent-lit corridors of a hospital, the diagnosis often feels like a life sentence. For Udipta Mech, a senior engineer at Oil India Limited (OIL), the year 2022 brought one such life-altering moment. He was diagnosed with Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SNHL), a condition that doesn’t just muffle the world but can fill the silence with a relentless, phantom noise. His particular affliction came with a cruel companion: tinnitus, a persistent ringing in the ears that can shatter concentration, disrupt sleep, and fray the very edges of sanity. 

For Mech, the path to relief seemed clear. Top medical professionals at Apollo Hospital in Delhi and the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) recommended a specialized treatment pathway: Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT), facilitated by a sophisticated device known as a Tinnitus Masker. Priced at approximately Rs 4.09 lakh, this wasn’t a simple hearing aid that amplified sound. It was a therapeutic instrument designed to retrain his brain to ignore the internal noise, offering a chance at normalcy. 

Confident that his employer’s medical scheme would cover this necessary expense, Mech applied for reimbursement. What followed was not a journey to recovery, but a grueling legal battle that culminated in a recent, definitive verdict from the Gauhati High Court. The court’s message was clear and, for Mech, devastating: corporate policy, no matter how cold it may seem in the face of human suffering, cannot be rewritten by judicial sympathy. 

This case, Udipta Mech vs. Oil India Limited, is far more than a simple dispute over a medical bill. It is a profound exploration of the rigid boundaries between employer obligation and employee expectation, the limitations of judicial power, and the often-painful gap between what is medically advisable and what is contractually allowed. 

The Case: A Fight on Two Fronts 

Mech’s struggle was twofold. First, he sought approval for the Tinnitus Masker, a device specifically omitted from OIL’s list of approved medical appliances. Second, when his requests were denied, he sought permission to travel abroad to a specialized tinnitus clinic, believing that the expertise he needed wasn’t available in India. 

OIL’s response was swift and unambiguous. The company anchored its defense in the OIL Employees’ Medical Attendance Rules, 2018. This document, a meticulously crafted contract between the employer and its workforce, is not a set of flexible guidelines but a fiscally binding code. It is designed to distribute a finite pool of corporate resources equitably among all employees. 

• On the Tinnitus Masker: The rules explicitly list “hearing aid” as an approved artificial appliance, with a reimbursement ceiling of Rs 50,000. OIL’s argument was simple: the inclusion of one specific item implies the exclusion of others. If the rule-makers had intended to cover a Tinnitus Masker, a distinct and more expensive piece of technology, they would have listed it. Its absence was not an oversight; it was a deliberate choice. 

• On Treatment Abroad: The 2018 Rules are equally strict on this front. Reimbursement for medical expenses incurred in a foreign country is primarily tied to company-provided insurance and is reserved for employees who fall ill while on official duty abroad. A personal trip, even for medical reasons, falls outside this purview. In a crucial turn of events, OIL presented a communication from the very doctor at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital who had initially suggested foreign treatment. The doctor clarified that the recommendation for an overseas clinic was made specifically at the patient’s insistence, not as a medical necessity stemming from a lack of options in India. This single piece of correspondence significantly weakened Mech’s claim that his hand was forced by the inadequacy of domestic medicine. 

The Courtroom: A Lesson in Legal Interpretation 

When the case reached Justice Arun Dev Chaudhury, the court was faced with a classic dilemma: the conflict between a sympathetic human story and the stark black-and-white of a contractual document. To ensure a fair hearing, especially given the petitioner’s lack of legal expertise, the court appointed K.P. Pathak as an amicus curiae (friend of the court) to argue on Mech’s behalf. 

The amicus presented a sophisticated legal argument, focusing on the semantics of Rule 8.0 of the 2018 Rules, which defines “treatment.” He pointed to the use of the phrase “means… and includes,” arguing that the word “includes” renders the definition elastic and open to interpretation. A Tinnitus Masker, he contended, could be interpreted as falling under the broader, unenumerated umbrella of “treatment.” Similarly, because foreign treatment wasn’t explicitly listed under Rule 9.0’s “Exclusions,” it should be considered permissible. 

Justice Chaudhury, however, was not persuaded. His judgment, delivered on February 25, 2026, became a masterclass in the strict interpretation of service rules, dismantling the amicus’s arguments point by point. 

The judge invoked the ancient Latin maxim, expressio unius est exclusio alterius — “the mention of one thing is the exclusion of another.” This principle is a cornerstone of contractual interpretation. When a rule specifies a list of items—in this case, a “hearing aid” up to Rs 50,000—it implicitly communicates that all other items of the same class (auditory devices) are not covered. 

“The omission of Tinnitus Masker from the enumerated list is, therefore, in the opinion of this court, not accidental but it is deliberate,” Justice Chaudhury wrote. The court recognized that the medical reimbursement scheme is a “fiscally calibrated” instrument. To suddenly interpret it as covering a Rs 4-lakh device would be to unilaterally rewrite the financial contract between OIL and its thousands of employees, potentially destabilizing the entire benefits structure. 

The Power and Limits of Sympathy 

Perhaps the most poignant and powerful part of the judgment was the judge’s candid acknowledgment of his own human limitations in the face of the law. He did not dismiss Mech’s suffering. He did not belittle the severity of his condition. Instead, he drew a bright, impassable line between personal feeling and judicial duty. 

“The sympathy of this court with the petitioner cannot substitute for statutory authorisation,” the order stated. “This Court must resist the temptation to rewrite policy under the guise of interpretation and be influenced by sympathy.” 

These words cut to the heart of the judiciary’s role in a democracy. Courts are not super-legislatures. They are not empowered to redraft contracts or corporate policies simply because they find the outcome of those policies to be harsh in an individual case. Their power is one of review, not of revision. They can strike down a rule if it is illegal, arbitrary, or violates fundamental rights, but they cannot create a new, more generous rule out of a sense of compassion. 

The judge further clarified that a claim for a specific medical device or treatment, even if medically desirable, does not automatically become an enforceable fundamental right under Article 21 (Right to Life) of the Constitution simply because it is mentioned in a service rule. Article 21 guarantees the right to live with dignity, but it does not compel a specific employer to fund every conceivable medical treatment for its employees, especially when the terms of employment explicitly state otherwise. 

What This Means for You: Lessons from the OIL Case 

The Gauhati High Court’s ruling, while specific to one man’s case, sends ripples far beyond the corridors of Oil India Limited. It serves as a critical reminder for employees across India, both in the public and private sectors. 

1. Your Company’s Medical Policy is a Contract, Not a Promise:It is easy to view your employer’s medical benefits as a safety net, a promise of care in your time of need. Legally, however, they are a precisely worded contract. The fine print matters. The list of “approved treatments” and “covered devices” is not a suggestion; it is the ceiling of your entitlement. Before assuming a treatment is covered, the first step must always be to consult the rule book, not the doctor’s prescription.
2. “Includes” Does Not Mean “Everything”:Theamicus’s argument about the word “includes” is a common point of confusion. In legal drafting, “includes” is often used to add specificity to a general term, not to leave the door wide open. As this judgment shows, courts will look at the overall scheme of the rules. If a specific item like a “hearing aid” is mentioned, it signals that the drafters were thinking about auditory solutions and made a conscious choice about which ones to fund. 
3. The Danger of Self-Initiated Actions:Mech traveled abroad for treatment on personal leave. While understandable, this action significantly weakened his legal position. By the time he approached the court, the expense had already been incurred. Courts are far more reluctant to order reimbursement for an action taken unilaterally than they are to direct an employer to facilitate a treatmentbefore it happens. The crucial lesson is to seek prior approval and, if denied, challenge that denial immediately, rather than proceeding and hoping for retroactive justice. 
4. Judicial Review Has Limits:This case is a powerful illustration of what courts can and cannot do. They can force an employer to follow its own rules fairly. They can strike down a rule that is demonstrably arbitrary. But they cannot, out of sympathy, order an employer to pay for something its rules were never designed to cover. To do so would be to venture into the realm of policy-making, a domain reserved for the executive and the legislature.

The Unanswered Question 

As Udipta Mech processes this legal defeat, he is left to grapple with a harsh reality. The ringing in his ears continues, a constant, unwelcome companion. The path to relief, once seemingly within reach, is now blocked not by a lack of medical expertise, but by the immovable weight of corporate policy. 

The Gauhati High Court has done its duty, upholding the sanctity of a contract and the limits of its own power. But the judgment leaves an unsettling question hanging in the air: In the delicate balance between fiscal prudence and human well-being, is there room for a more compassionate definition of “policy”? For now, the answer, at least for one engineer, is a definitive no. The court’s hands were tied, bound by the very rules designed to protect him, leaving his health—and his peace of mind—as the ultimate, uncompensated casualty.