DEVARAJAN Vs. N APPUSWAMY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is filed by the Employer/Proprietor of M/s.Jeyam Stone Works against the order dated 7.5.2008 made in WC.No.184/2006 by the learned Deputy Commissioner for Labour-I for Workmen's Compensation, Chennai-6, questioning the correctness and legality of the order and award, wherein the claim application filed by the claimant/Respondent herein was allowed in part and a compensation of Rs.91,376/- with interest at 12 per cent has been awarded.

(2.) For the purpose of convenience, the parties are referred to as they were arrayed before the Deputy Commissioner for Labour. The facts leading to filing of this Appeal are as under:-

(3.) The Appellant/Employer appeared before the Deputy Labour Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation and filed a statement of objections denying the averments made in the claim petition. The employee and employer relationship also came to be denied. According to the Appellant/Employer, the claimant worked on daily coolie basis some time during 1990 in his shop, which is run on small turn over and the claimant was not a permanent employee. He stopped working even as a daily coolie from 1999 onwards. In fact, during the year 2002, the Appellant/Employer came to know that the claimant has opened his own shop for similar cudappa stone business at No.232, Tiruvannamalai Main Road, Gingee Taluk. After commencing his own business, the claimant frequently came to Chennai to the Shop of the Appellant for the purpose of buying stones for his shop at Tiruvannamalai. On the date of the accident i.e. on 9.4.2005, the claimant visited his shop and on his own volition, accompanied a private motorised open fish cart and went to the nearby open space where the Appellant/Employer was keeping some stones, slabs, etc. After some time, he was informed that a stone slipped on his leg who already had an injury and on humanitarian grounds, he was taken to the Government Hospital, Royapettah by the Appellant/ Employer. Therefore, there was no employee and employer relationship between them and the incident had occurred not in the course of employment.