R RENGASAMY Vs. A AMALRAJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) NOTICE of motion was ordered in the civil miscellaneous appeal and so the matter was taken up. The opposite party in the workmen's compensation claim is the appellant herein.The facts of the case are as follows :The respondent herein claiming to be a helper on daily wages earning a sum of Rs. 75 per day for more than three years had been engaged by the petitioner for contingency work like office maintenance, liaison, cleaning and painting work. According to the workman/respondent in the course of such employment, the services of the petitioner was also used for work at respondent's residence. On 14.11.1995 at 12 noon when the respondent was white washing the house belonging to the petitioner, he fell down from the building and sustained grievous injuries. He was treated in the Government Hospital in Tiruchirapalli and became disabled and therefore, compensation of a sum of Rs. 10, 000 was claimed.The appellant herein denied that the respondent was a workman engaged by him. He denied the claim as a false claim. It was also denied that at any point of time the respondent had white washed his house. The claim itself was said to be false.

(2.) THE Workmen's Compensation Commissioner awarded a compensation of a sum of Rs. 37, 515 against which the present appeal has been filed.Mr. Bharathachakravarthy, learned counsel for the appellant submitted that the award has to be set aside on the following grounds :(1) THE respondent is not a workman as per the Act.(2) THE respondent had not proved that he had an employer-employee relationship with the appellant.(3) THE quantum is excessive in any event.THE case of the respondent is that he was doing office maintenance, cleaning and liaison work for the appellant and incidentally some work in the house. Whereas the appellant has a barber shop and therefore, this itself would show that the claim is false. THE learned counsel also submitted that the only ground on which the liability was fixed on the appellant is on the basis of the wound certificate in which the person who had admitted the respondent in the Hospital is shown to be Rangasamy Mudalali. When the appellant had totally denied the knowledge about the accident or the fact that the accident occurred in his house, the Commissioner ought not to have fixed the liability merely on the basis of that entry.

(3.) THE petitioner himself has claimed only a sum of Rs. 10, 000. According to him he was earning a sum of Rs. 2, 500 per month. It must be remembered that the appellant's trade is a barber shop in a village. THE respondent admittedly is not even one of the barbers, who assist him in that trade and in those circumstances it is highly credible that a owner of a small barber shop would be paying a sum of Rs. 2, 500 to a person who does contingency work like white washing. This is one feature which would show that the respondent has ventured on this litigation to try to encash as much as possible.