KUNJOONJAMMA DANIEL Vs. KERALA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellants herein are the dependants of deceased Mathai Daniel. He was a retired worker of the Electricity Board. After his retirement he was entrusted to do petty works. He was a petty contractor for definite items of work. While doing maintenance of an electric post, on 29.5.1991, the electric post was broken and he fell down and sustained fatal injuries. Dependants of the deceased claimed workmen's compensation. The fact that while doing the electric line maintenance work he fell down and sustained fatal injuries is not disputed. The sand taken by the Electricity Board before the Workmen's Compensation Commissioner was that he was not a workman as defined under the Workmen's Compensation Act as he was an independent contractor. Ext. D1 is the quotation for the work he was doing. Ext. D2 is the work order awarding contract to the deceased to do the maintenance for 400 metres of line. He has to do it personally by himself under the supervision of the Electricity Board Officials. Before filing application for compensation appellants issued a lawyer notice and in reply to that by Ext. D4 they were informed that since he was a petty contractor Board is not liable to pay compensation. So the only question to be considered is whether the deceased was a workman as defined under the Workmen's Compensation Act when he met with the accident.

(2.) S.2(n) of the Workmen's Compensation Act defines a "workman" as follows:

(3.) The question whether one is a workman or an independent contractor was considered by the Supreme Court as early as in 1957 in Dharangadhara Chemical Works Ltd. v. State of Saurashtra ((1957) SCR 152). In that case the question arose whether a person is an independent contractor or workman as defined under the Industrial Disputes Act. Certain persons were employed for manufacture of salt by the licensees. The salt was manufactured by a class of professional labourers known as agarias from rain water that got mixed up with saline matter in the soil. The work was seasonal in nature. After the work the agarias left for their own villages. The demised lands were divided into pattas and each plot was allotted to the same agarias every year. At the end of such season the accounts were settled at the rate of 5 anas 6 paise per mound. The contention raised by the employer was that agarias are only independent contractors and not workmen. The Industrial Tribunal held that they are workmen as they are working under the supervision of the employer and at the maximum they can be called as 'piece rated workmen'. The finding of the Industrial Tribunal was upheld by the Supreme Court in the above case.